4 ms·

With some extreme exceptions, making personal decisions based on wide trends doesn't make much sense. Your influence over you own life always tends to be much s

With some extreme exceptions, making personal decisions based on wide trends doesn't make much sense. Your influence over you own life always tends to be much stronger than the influence of trends at the margins. If in a recession 20% of people lose their job (exhagurating for the sake of the argument), you have a lot of agency in making sure that you are in the 80% who don't. And even if you're so unlucky you end up in a company that goes bankrupt or has to cut 80% of jobs or anyone hired in the last year or something like that, you are still likely to be able to find another job just as easily as you found this one. On the other hand, never taking any (reasonable, calculated) risk is the surest way to erode, over time, whatever advantage you have previously earned and let your career converge towards the average and below it.

Yoric 4y ago
On the other hand, in many EU countries, if you need to lay off employees, you typically get rid of the most recent hires. So switching job during a recession is also a mean to paint a "lay me off"-shaped target on your shirt.
- intellectronica 4y ago
  Perhaps, but being made redundant is an inconvenience, not a fatal problem. It can be easily mitigated by having at least a few months of expenses in cash set aside and the in-demand skills that the OP evidently has.
  - candiodari 4y ago
    In the EU, many companies (esp. government) are required by law to layoff recent hires first, or in a particular order. Governments have largely decided that the government, not large companies themselves, do union negotiation, giving what the government wants, tempered a bit by negotiations (but NOT negotiated with the employees themselves), the force of law. And mostly it's most-recent hire gets fired first. Of course the government does exempt itself from these regulation: both union folks themselves and people that are for various reasons placed by government (e.g. people who have a regulatory function, but work/are paid by the bank, and usually a whole management structure above them), cannot get fired. Only in healthcare have I really seen that there's a real order, and of course, it's based on perceived status. Maintenance personnel gets fired first, administrators last. Despite the obvious problems this generates for the care patients receive. The real kick in the nuts of these agreements is that because they have force of law, they override your contract (instead of contracts taking precedence like in the private sector) and are not bound by many rules (e.g. they can devalue pensions already earned AFTER THE FACT. For example, say you "earn" 100 per month pension for every year of work. After 20 years, they suddenly decide that, no, they're only going to pay you 50. Despite you having already earned that)
- noam_compsci 4y ago
  Pretty strong words here. Do you have any data to back this up or is it just opinion. I’ve from the EU and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this actually happen. And even then it’s usually in banking but I presume a HN post is about tech.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Klarna in Sweden laid off a lot if its recent hires recently. So did Bitpanda in Austria. LIFO is usually the way to go when mass layoffs happen.
    - intellectronica 4y ago
      Two companies. Out of thousands.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        Those are the only two that came on top of my head which I knew the HN crowd would also be familiar with. Did you expect me to list dozens of other companies?
        intellectronica 4y ago
        Not quite. I'd expect you to list hundreds or thousands of companies, or credible statistics. Of course some companies are making redundncies, but to make the argument that accepting an offer for a new job is especially risky you need more than that.
      - alkonaut 4y ago
        It’s basically law in some countries. It’s negotiable but firing LIFO is cheap and firing someone with longer tenure is expensive (e.g severance could be 12 months pay or more). So all else being equal, if you are a recent hire you are at much higher risk.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago

Yoric 4y ago

On the other hand, in many EU countries, if you need to lay off employees, you typically get rid of the most recent hires. So switching job during a recession is also a mean to paint a "lay me off"-shaped target on your shirt.

intellectronica 4y ago
Perhaps, but being made redundant is an inconvenience, not a fatal problem. It can be easily mitigated by having at least a few months of expenses in cash set aside and the in-demand skills that the OP evidently has.
- candiodari 4y ago
  In the EU, many companies (esp. government) are required by law to layoff recent hires first, or in a particular order. Governments have largely decided that the government, not large companies themselves, do union negotiation, giving what the government wants, tempered a bit by negotiations (but NOT negotiated with the employees themselves), the force of law. And mostly it's most-recent hire gets fired first. Of course the government does exempt itself from these regulation: both union folks themselves and people that are for various reasons placed by government (e.g. people who have a regulatory function, but work/are paid by the bank, and usually a whole management structure above them), cannot get fired. Only in healthcare have I really seen that there's a real order, and of course, it's based on perceived status. Maintenance personnel gets fired first, administrators last. Despite the obvious problems this generates for the care patients receive. The real kick in the nuts of these agreements is that because they have force of law, they override your contract (instead of contracts taking precedence like in the private sector) and are not bound by many rules (e.g. they can devalue pensions already earned AFTER THE FACT. For example, say you "earn" 100 per month pension for every year of work. After 20 years, they suddenly decide that, no, they're only going to pay you 50. Despite you having already earned that)
noam_compsci 4y ago
Pretty strong words here. Do you have any data to back this up or is it just opinion. I’ve from the EU and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen this actually happen. And even then it’s usually in banking but I presume a HN post is about tech.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Klarna in Sweden laid off a lot if its recent hires recently. So did Bitpanda in Austria. LIFO is usually the way to go when mass layoffs happen.
  - intellectronica 4y ago
    Two companies. Out of thousands.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Those are the only two that came on top of my head which I knew the HN crowd would also be familiar with. Did you expect me to list dozens of other companies?
      - intellectronica 4y ago
        Not quite. I'd expect you to list hundreds or thousands of companies, or credible statistics. Of course some companies are making redundncies, but to make the argument that accepting an offer for a new job is especially risky you need more than that.
    - alkonaut 4y ago
      It’s basically law in some countries. It’s negotiable but firing LIFO is cheap and firing someone with longer tenure is expensive (e.g severance could be 12 months pay or more). So all else being equal, if you are a recent hire you are at much higher risk.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago