7 ms·

Is there a significant difference between terminating a full time, "at will" employee and a contractor? Other than a few weeks of severance I can't think of an

• rwmurrayVT 6y ago
  I don't think "at will" employees are even guaranteed severance pay every where.
  • dudul 6y ago
    True, this is just an expected curtesy, just like the 2 week notice an employee is supposed to give when leaving.
    • derivagral 6y ago
      I always thought this was an odd formality due to the asymmetry; if an employer is terminating you, they generally won't give you a 2 week notice, at least in the USA.
      • dudul 6y ago
        But they are supposed to give you 2 weeks of pay. I prefer to get the cash and have 2 weeks, at home, starting the full time search for a new job. Instead of having to show up for 2 weeks while knowing that I will be gone in a few days :)
        • otterley 6y ago
          There's no such law in any US State that I'm aware of that requires a company provide you severance pay upon termination. Such severance is a courtesy at best. When the circumstances are contentious, it is frequently provided in exchange for an agreement that the terminated employee not sue the company for unlawful termination, discrimination, etc. and not defame the company in any way.
          • ensignavenger 6y ago
            There are also no laws that an at-will employee must give two weeks notice- it is a courtesy at best.
          • dudul 6y ago
            Yes, just like the 2 week notice from the employee. I feel like we've gone full circle twice now.
            • perl4ever 6y ago
              I've always given 2 weeks notice, never been offered severance pay, but on the other hand never been marched out immediately like some people. In one instance, I gave my resignation and then they said shortly afterwards how about we make it a week from now instead of the full two weeks (or something like that). They paid me according to how long I worked and no more.
          • gnopgnip 6y ago
            In CA and many other states have an implied contract exception to at-will employment. If two weeks notice is in the written employee handbook, or they have a history or doing providing it they do need to give two weeks notice or pay in lieu even if you don't agree to any other agreements
        • rwmurrayVT 6y ago
          Tell that to all of my former employers...
        • kradroy 6y ago
          In most jurisdictions the only thing a company in the US is legally required to do is pay you for the days you've worked in the pay period you are terminated. If they let you go, they are also usually required to give you your final paycheck at termination time. Mandatory severance is not part of the law.
• klipt 6y ago
  Legality aside, culturally Google has a reputation of never having laid off employees. Even when a team gets shuttered the engineers are given months to find a new role on another team. That kind of positive reputation makes recruiting easier.
  • xhkkffbf 6y ago
    They may not have publicly announced layoffs, but I know several who, let's say, overstayed their welcome. They were given months, but no other position appeared. The company was still hiring like crazy, but somehow an internal candidate wasn't acceptable. Go figure. It's a company like any other and now they're acting more like the herd.
    • sida 6y ago
      Then that's just a PIP in disguise. The candidate could very well have been a false positive on the initial hire in the first place. And candidate simply got lucky into that team
      • hedora 6y ago
        I know an extremely high performing engineer that was on a successful but completed project (not at Google). His whole team was given a few months to find a new position. Multiple managers tried to get them on their teams, but the transfers all were blocked at a higher level. Eventually, he asked for and got severance pay. Shortly after, during the earnings call, the leadership told the investors they were reducing engineering spend by cutting hiring and consolidating programs, but that all redundant engineers were encouraged to seek another position in the company. Of course, they neglected to mention that such positions didn’t really exist. It was clearly a layoff, except they strung the laid off employees along for a few months. That way, they didn’t have to damage morale or customer/investor confidence by admitting it was a layoff. I’m sure people further removed from the situation would assume it was a PIP, which hurts the engineers’ careers.
        • 6y ago
• bob33212 6y ago
  Contracts are for a specific time period, 12 months for example. FTE has no expiration date.
  • dudul 6y ago
    At will employment can be terminated at any time. Contracts can also be terminated whenever the company decides, as per the present example. Not sure what that has to do with my question.
    • ikeyany 6y ago
      Fun fact: Montana is the only state that bans this.
      • gnopgnip 6y ago
        It is a little more nuanced than that. Many states have laws that say PTO is earned, it needs to be paid out 100% of the time, some say it depends on the written company policy, other say it never needs to be paid out. And similarly, Montana requires good cause to fire employees(except if they are new employees or meet a number of other exceptions), a number of states have exceptions to at-will that require employers to follow their own policies(and many large companies require two weeks notice, and good cause for firing) and a number have few to no exceptions to at-will.
    • dougmwne 6y ago
      Sure that's true in theory. In practice contractors are let go at the end of their contract unless there's a renewal and often due to co-employment risk they can only be renewed for a certain length of time before they must either be hired or let go. It's also seen as no big deal to end a contract early. You are there fully at the convenience of the company. Often there's no need to go through HR, they just make a phone call to your agency for you not to come in the next day. That's much different than most companies treat their FTEs, even though in the USA employees have almost no protection in most states anyway. Just because something is legally similar does not mean it's used the same in practice. This is very true of contracts.
• C1sc0cat 6y ago
  Well if you have accepted a contract offer isn't google in breach of contract? Self employed contractors seem to get a really bad deal in the USA. If I had agreed a contract in the UK for x months work id expect the employer to honour it and also be paid 2 to 3 times the FTE rate .
  • jeffbee 6y ago
    This article is using “contractor” to mean whatever they want it to mean. They’re not talking about highly paid independent software developers working on contract. They’re talking about at-will employees of a third party that Google contracted with to fill low-skill positions.
    • 0xffff2 6y ago
      That's not "whatever they want it to mean". That's industry standard terminology. And it's not all low-skill positions. A friend of mine is a PhD optics researcher and he was a Google contractor (the employee of a third party kind) for a few years before moving on to an FTE position elsewhere.
    • bob33212 6y ago
      The difference is that contractors can be removed from the company without any action on part of the employeer. If an employer wants to remove contractors one option they have is to do nothing and let the contracts expire. They cannot do that to an employee. They must explicitly tell the employee that their employment is being terminated.
    • C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Even for higher skilled "contract positions" you don't seem to command a premium in the USA.
      • geodel 6y ago
        I have seen people getting paid a lot on contracts. But of course it depends who considered them high skilled - Company contracting them or contractor themselves.
• kirubakaran 6y ago
  Layoffs (especially of 2k people) are interpreted as the company being in trouble. Letting contractors go is interpreted as business as usual. Defaults matter. FTEs are default live; they stay unless laid off or fired. Contractors are default dead; they're gone unless the contract is renewed. In this case they've rescinded offers that were made, which makes it unusual and newsworthy.
• mywittyname 6y ago
  There's a legal difference at these volumes. The WARN Act applies here and states may have their own laws that also apply.
• momokoko 6y ago
  You can’t sue for discrimination or wrongful termination. You are not protected by the WARN act. There are more but that’s just off the top of my head. If there wasn’t a difference, companies wouldn’t do it. Remember, they have to pay these people more money than they would for a direct hire because the staffing agency takes a cut of their weekly pay.
  • gamblor956 6y ago
    Contractors can sue for discrimination in some states.
  • gnopgnip 6y ago
    Contractors for Google are still employees working for a contracting company. They could sue if they were discriminated against for membership in a protected class.
    • mamon 6y ago
      Usually this is not true: they are not employees at all, contracting company also hires them as subcontractors, each of them running their own sole propertiorship (at least that's how it works in my country). But even if they were employees, they are not really getting fired from the contracting company - it can still try and find them another gig, for a different client. So you can say they are not getting fired at all, just suddenly have no work to do (but still have a valid employment contract). Of course if contracting agency can't find them another position in reasonably short time they will fire them as well, but that's not on Google anymore, so Google can't be sued for that.
      • pyuser583 6y ago
        I’ve worked as a contractor. Was definitely an employee of the contractor company.
• excursionist 6y ago
  A lot of contractors are incorporated, so the contract is not between google and the contractor, but between google and the contractor's corp (sometimes another agency in between google and corp). So the contractor is not an employee of google and employment laws do not apply. Termination rules (typically a few weeks notice) are defined in the contract.
• gnopgnip 6y ago
  Yes there is. In CA and many other states the at-will employment doctrine has an implied contract exception. That means employers need a good faith business reason, or good cause to fire employees, but not contractors in this context.