4 ms·

What’s different about the way fabs operate in Europe?

• p_l 5y ago
  Fabs tend to be the kind of workplace where certain optimizations regarding employment law don't work well (i.e. no hiring everyone as contractor)[0], and that means dealing with employment law that has no concept of "overtime exempt" and often strong requirements on things like "maximum hours per week including overtime". [0] Hiring as permanent employee vs fictitious "B2B" contracting can have different trade offs to employer, and while the later is cheaper in terms of wages, things like due diligence or contractual responsibility to customers/suppliers might be easier with permanent workers.
• ascar 5y ago
  It's not about the way fabs operate, but about work laws and culture. If you need your employees to work in 12 hour shifts to keep the fab running then hire enough employees so they can still have a <=40 hour week, i.e. only work 3 days a week. Or (which is afaik the default in Germany) run the fab with three 8 hour shifts per day.
  • webmaven 5y ago
    > Or (which is afaik the default in Germany) run the fab with three 8 hour shifts per day. That seems reasonable, as long as workers have a stable schedule rather than the 'flex time' insanity that plagues many US workplaces. That said, I imagine there are productivity tradeoffs between fresher workers (esp. at end of shift) vs. more handoffs between shifts and higher headcount of both workers and managers (so more communication overhead). How does that work out in practice?