26 ms·

Normalising Layoffs/Firing

214 points by _448 4y ago

I am seeing lots of posts on HN about layoffs. So and so company fired 1000 people, so and so company reduced it's workforce by 20%, etc. We have normalised firing of people. I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation. I remember asking few years ago to my sister's husband, who runs our family business, what keeps him awake at night with regards to business. His answer, "Not messing up". I was expecting something like "Funding", "Losing sales" etc. But hearing his answer surprised me. Because it sounded personal. So I asked him what does he mean? And he said, "The company has about 100 employees, but I am not just responsible for 100 employees. I am responsible for about 400 to 600 people. Each employee has a family. They make their future plans because they have an income from this company. They have to fund their kids education, they have to look after their aging parents, they might have taken a loan for daughter's marriage or for a house. They are relying on me. If I mess up, I affect lives of 400 to 600 people. That keeps me awake." Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised.

phendrenad2 4y ago
There's always give and take. Trivializing layoffs has made hiring managers okay with hiring employees who were laid off. The ability to lay off employees without destroying the company image allows companies to overhire in times of plenty. So while it's annoying and stressful to interview while laid off, I think that I also received the direct benefit more likely to be hired at random startups because they have that layoff option.
steebo 4y ago
Is it that you feel that the posters are doing the trivializing, or society as a whole? My impression is that nobody treats these layoffs as trivial. Recessions, downturns and the resulting employment uncertainty are cause for anxiety everywhere.
- _448 4y ago
  > Is it that you feel that the posters are doing the trivializing, or society as a whole? Society as a whole, but more specifically the businesses that do mass layoffs.
zeruch 4y ago
"We have normalised firing of people." We spent decades in the US smashing unions, smashing pensions (replacing them with more volatile instruments like 401Ks) and made at-will employment dangerous for both sides of the equation. Firing has been trivialized for decades. This is not new, and the current wave is minuscule compared to 2008, 2000, and previous. The worst is yet to come.
- clumsysmurf 4y ago
  And one side wants to smash social security as well https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/republican-plan-cut-medicare-social-security-debt-ceiling-crisis.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/republican-plan-cut-...
- jlund-molfese 4y ago
  Why would an employee in the tech sector prefer an employer-managed pension? A 401(k) usually allows me to choose what I invest my money in (including bonds), and can be rolled over to a new employer easily. And it’s my money once it’s in my account, not my employer’s money. They can’t require me to work for a certain period of time to get it out, and don’t pay me less to compensate for offering the retirement benefit.
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    That is a pension. In the UK they're called Self Invested Personal Pension and basically all companies do them now. But I agree they pretty much only have upsides - no risk of the pension fund going bankrupt (would be good right about now in the UK!) and no way for previous generations to steal from the current one, which is basically what all defined benefit pensions are doing now.
    - jerojero 4y ago
      Well I would guess some people think that living in society means you are always, as a new generation, building on top of what the previous one did. So it is fair that when they can't work anymore we use part of the surplus of productivity that comes precisely from that long-term investment in productivity made by older generations to help them out. To think of that as "stealing" seems pretty individualistic and short-sighted to me. What benefits would the current generation have to give future generations a future if everything that matters is how much you save and do in the now? This line of thinking leads to financial decisions that value the present much more than they do the future and it's in big part a reason why we are in deep waters when it comes to climate change. Of course, I agree that it is important to reward people personally as well. But I think it's much more important that we are building sustainable societies capable of taking care of people all through out their life cycles and that improvements on productivity impact us all because, after all, we all live together. But I guess that's just my personal vision of what a good society should be; for others, as you say, they would rather live in a dog-eat-dog world because they know they would be top dogs.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Your question made me wonder as to the history of employment-based income and the practice of hiring and firing. An ngram for that phrase itself shows a sharp initial onset in the 1910s: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiring+and+firing&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chiring%20and%20firing%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Chiring%20and%20firing%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiring+and+fir...> My understanding is that this was strongly tied to mass production (Fordism, after Henry Ford), which wasn't just factories but also in significant manner railroads (more below), construction projects (structures, civil engineering projects, shipbuilding), and with time, office work. The contrast was with prior regimes of serf or feudal labour, as well as independent farmers, small crafts, artisans, shopkeepers, and professionals, many of whom were in large part independent and often family-oriented businesses. Much of that is now highly consolidated, wage-based employment.
t43562 4y ago
There was and still is a stigma in all countries and social security is something that had to be fought for and which is under continual attack. In the UK it's your mortgage that's the big worry - houses so expensive that you will pay them off for the rest of your life. What happens if you get fired and cannot pay the mortgage?
xupybd 4y ago
Here in new Zealand it's next to impossible to fire someone. We only really do redundancies . If you were fired it must have been serious misconduct.
- hparadiz 4y ago
  What happens when a company runs out of money? I'm seriously asking.
  - bogantech 4y ago
    If the business can't afford the amount of staff they have then they have redundancies i.e people are laid off.
  - altacc 4y ago
    Not PP, but in countries where there is employment protection, a company can still officially downsize and make roles redundant and therefore layoff the people in these roles. Those in now redundant roles can technically apply for any new open roles created but either there aren't new roles or management has a good idea who it wants to be in that role. This is actually similar to a lot of tech layoffs, where the company is laying off a large number of people to downsize the company and not rehiring other people into those roles. Where employment protection and unions come in is areas like redundancy pay offs, including potentially retraining; and ensuring that redundancy is not used to target individuals (e.g. making a role redundant to lay someone off and then recreating that role to hire somebody else). If you want to fire somebody there needs to be good cause. Otherwise you "manage them out of the business" by making them unhappy whilst not performing constructive dismissal. This was all a lot of hassle when I was running teams but on the upside, as a manager I was also just an employee and protected by the same laws.
ballofrubber 4y ago
Reducing headcount _should_ be normalised. Here in Germany companies are almost forced to not lay off people. IMO this creates bad dynamics and makes people dependant on companies. If switching company would be easier, workers could demand higher wages etc.
jitix 4y ago
As a silver lining, because we’ve normalized firing, we’ve also normalized jumping ship frequently. Get hikes and save up during good times, skill dev/change course during the recessions. But tbh it’d be better if things didn’t swing so much.
- kioleanu 4y ago
  I jumped ship quite often in Europe myself, without any problems - 8 or 9 employers in the last 15 years. I think being able to switch between jobs like this is a sign of a competitive job market and not necessarily a by-product of normalized firing
MrPatan 4y ago
This: > Normalising Layoffs/Firing is how you fix this: > stigma is associated with being laid off
ttoinou 4y ago
Firing easily and hiring easily are two sides of the same coin. If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. If companies can go down quickly, new companies can be formed in an instant. In Europe where firing is almost impossible, hiring is a very tedious process. Companies are big and look financially stable because the little ones cannot survive or dont enjoy the same monopoly / legal protections. If a company is not useful to society, it should go down. If you're not a good fit with the company, you should find your own way or a better company. Don't idealize employment and companies. They are only tools on our path to wealth and freedom
- butterNaN 4y ago
  I have been in Europe for a few years now and my experiance is significantly opposite of what the parent comment claims.
  - jfoster 4y ago
    That doesn't really make logical sense to me. Can you elaborate? If hiring is an irreversible decision for a company, why wouldn't consideration be required prior to any hire?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - hhmc 4y ago
      Having more protections than zero (at will) doesn’t make hiring anything as dramatic as ‘irreversible’
    - snovv_crash 4y ago
      There's usually a considerable probation period where the firing rules are much more relaxed. Germany is typically 6 months, for example.
      - ttoinou 4y ago
junofan 4y ago
Trivializing makes it less of a scarlet letter if you do get laid off or fired. Probably a net benefit for most people in the long run not to risk the business cycle affecting their future employability.
- jfoster 4y ago
  But also leads to people living less stable lives in general. As an employee, your income could go to zero and you may find yourself thrust into being a job seeker at any time.
jimjimjim 4y ago
A lot of other (western) countries have a lot more legal protection for workers. For instance, your boss can't just say 'You're Fired!' because they are in a bad mood. That's insta lawsuit zone. Even layoffs. A position needs to be disestablished before someone can be laid off. And there are legal steps and consultation periods etc etc.
jlund-molfese 4y ago
It’s not all bad. Having firing as an option in the US makes it palatable for employers to take risks, like hiring the non traditional student, or the person without any industry experience. If at-will employment wasn’t available, companies would react by only hiring when absolutely necessary, and there would be fewer available jobs. Plus, even in the US, some companies offer pensions and are known for almost never laying off or firing people. So you do have the choice of stability if you’re willing to limit the companies you work for. Startups and publicly-traded companies are not the place for those who want a guaranteed job.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  You don't need fully at-will employment for that. But I do agree with your overall point. If it was literally impossible to fire anyone - rather than just quite difficult - then interviews would be insane. Probation would last years.
  - tchalla 4y ago
    > then interviews would be insane. I'm glad tech companies have very simple interview procedures at the moment.
the_optimist 4y ago
Yet we meanwhile worship at the alter of the Fed, seeing only money increased and ruling toward wanton destruction, that individual lives must be sacrificed in reduced employ, consumption, and future.
- jimjimjim 4y ago
  careful, being disrespectful of the alter will anger the acolytes
tibbydudeza 4y ago
We have very good labor laws much to the disgust of free market, libertarian and pro-business political factions, yes but it NEVER them or management who is fired so they can shove their philosophies. There is a legal process when you need to reduce staff - the bare minimum offer is one week of pay for each year of service - got laid off after 19 years and company expedited the legal process if I volunteered for layoff by offer an extra half a week. It allowed me to pay of my house, my car, short term debt and not worry for income for an entire year.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
onion2k 4y ago
Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised. I don't think it has been. I don't think you can generalize the sentiment of people at a company from the HN post about a PR announcement for how they're cutting staff. When a company announces layoffs they're telling the markets, investors, and the public that they need to make a significant change. That doesn't tell you anything about how the founders, board, HR team, or anyone else feel about the layoffs. FWIW the people I know who work in HR are usually gutted when they have to make jobs redundant. Founders and boards are less so, but usually because they believe it's a choice between jobs cuts and company collapse. Both these things are from very limited exposure to companies making cuts though. Perhaps there are companies and people out there who think it's trivial. That would be sad.
yibberish 4y ago
nope, it's just happening a lot recently, more than usual.
diabolus 4y ago
"They are relying on me. If I mess up, I affect lives of 400 to 600 people. That keeps me awake." This is something I heard many times. And the most of the time, companies with this motto are underpaying and don't give a proper wage to employees to make any passive income or any investment to become less depended on the job. And this motto becomes an excuse for overtime and workload in bad times. A professional work should not be responsible/aware of any daughter's wedding or personal loans. Developed countries have massive taxes to support you on unemployment. Risk of layoff must be part of your salary expectation. Young Startups always pay more than stable companies.
- deelly 4y ago
  A lot of "should, must, have"... What if "could not, can't, don't have"? Sorry, just to clarify, your point is that this behavior is absolutely normal?
nullcipher 4y ago
> Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised. Yup. Just like we have trivialized climate change, consumerism, mass wastage :-( Ah, capitalism. The devil is in the details.
Test0129 4y ago
> We have normalised firing of people. I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation. Not to sound crass here but it seems like you're fishing for virtue. Hiring and firing are normal. A company of 20,000 firing 20% of it's workforce sounds major but that's the industry. It's normalized because it is normal. The field of software engineering is so fungible 20% of employees losing their job is nearly meaningless in the current job market because you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm the next day. It's not like Ford closing a factory. In other words, you need to relax and get out of your head a little. This industry is nothing like the factories. When 20% of factory workers lose their jobs everyone rightfully panics because it's not as easy to get another factory job (at least anymore...here in the west). 20% of tech employees getting laid off from a company is a nothingburger. 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay. This is the definition of trivial.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cyrusshepard 4y ago
  Your comment seems to assume that 1) employment levels for software engineers is the same in India 2) that the OP has overstated the social stigma of layoffs in India, and finally 3) the current employment landscape that you find yourself in will last indefinitely. Based on this, I suspect it's highly likely the hubris in this comment will not age well.
  - xyproto 4y ago
    Regarding 3), I believe that solving problems and creating systems will always be relevant.
    - spaceman_2020 4y ago
      Most startups doing these layoffs are not really solving any real problems. Many are wrapping up existing solutions in a better UI/UX. Which might be nice to have in an upcycle, but in a downtrend, will be the first on the chopping block.
bfung 4y ago
I think the OP’s sentiment is being a better human and in an ideal world, I like and agree on the thought. I try to practice it in my management duties as well. But I’ll be the devil’s advocate and present the harsh reality: How is firing, in the USA, not the actual normal to begin with? As a late Gen X / early millennial, I’ve experienced these economic downturns three times: the fallout of 2001 dotcom bubble, 2008 Great Financial Crisis (GFC), and this Covid shock era. The lessons learned each time, is the corporations try to survive at all costs, and casting many individuals out to fend for themselves is the base case. As a college senior in Computer Science in 2002-2003, my many classmates had jobs lined up in Oct 2002, ready for graduation and work summer 2003. The tech company stocks were flying high, but all of a sudden, in a month, all those companies had cut entire departments. Hearing the news, a lot of friends that thought they had “secured” a job, called those companies and almost all of them were in limbo - those cut departments didn’t even return the calls to say “sorry, entire dept. was cut, start looking again”. My parents generation was used to the “gold watch retirement philosophy”, stick w/one company for 50 years and they will take care of you. That reality shattered for them during the 2008 GFC. They had worked for 20 years at the same company, but faced with layoffs and cuts, they no longer really knew how to interview and learn new skills. As a result, my dad “retired” at 55, always looking but never finding that next job. Luckily, they were in early tech (AT&T), and mom found contracting roles to service the legacy tech they worked on during full employment. The lesson here was that - don’t let those skills and interview skills rot. Being at one place for 20years and specializing can seem like “security”, but actually was a curse after the shock. And here we are now, after ~14 years of relative stability, time to flex those survival instincts, don’t rest on the past comforts.
plaguepilled 4y ago
"I am responsible for their families" might be trivialising the employee's role in ensuring an income and planning for eventualities. (That doesn't mean I support layoffs in the slightest, just that I'm bothered by that line)
spoonjim 4y ago
The alternative to normalized firing is normalized career employment like that which turned Japan into a noncompetitive economy.
- badpun 4y ago
  Are we sure it's that? They had even stricter rules when they were the economic miracle (1960-1990). I wouldn't be suprised if just crappy demography caught up with them.
intellectronica 4y ago
Every time someone's loses their job they experience some hardship, or at least disappointment, no question about that, though when it comes to tech workers it's hard to feel bad for them (us) because the other side of the equation is the ability to easily get jobs that are very well paid. When laying off people isn't normalized what you get is an inefficient labour market, where companies can't adjust to market conditions and hiring people is too costly. That leads to stunted growth, and everyone loses.
ighostly 4y ago
> where there is no social security This is the root cause problem. The fact that a set of cumulative hiring and firing decisions by employers and potential employers can render someone and their family destitute, is the biggest flaw in the system most of us live in. Not just in the countries mentioned either - we have a global failure of resource allocation.
- Adiqq 4y ago
  I agree, as long as there is no guarantees for your human rights, we'll continue to live in scary world, where being fired might literally mean death or suicide or becoming criminal. I know that in my country many men took their life, after they lost job, because unless you can quickly find something else, your life can quickly fall apart and most people don't earn enough to have savings and state won't offer you much help. I know that now we talk more often about how this global system is broken, but can we actually do anything about it, if wealthy just amass their wealth and don't want to share? I don't want revolution, but it seems like we need some revolution, so humanity can survive as something more than masses of wage slaves. It's just sad, when I again hear in my company about equality, sustainability, but CEO is making 150-300x my salary and is in top 0.1% by income and I hear that I don't even deserve raise that would match inflation in my country.
pfortuny 4y ago
That example looks good and virtuous. Until you realize that the new boss might perfectly think: “this firm has been giving so much to all those families… maybe they should return something more than just their jobs. I am going to suggest X to introduce his beautiful daughter to my son.” A job is a job. A business is not a family. A boss is not a father. It is great to be virtuous but it is not great to mix contexts.
madis 4y ago
Correct and exactly how it is supposed to work. What do you expect a business owner to do when the job of a worker is not profitable / necessary any more? Pay him forever out of their own pocket, taking a loss? If you've ever hired qualified personnel, you know how hard it is to find good people. No good business owner would fire a good employee for a whim. They'd keep them as long as possible (even when temporarily there's no work) Other thing is if it's easy to re-hire when there is profitable work again. This happens where there's much more offer (of workers) than demand. For example jobs with low cualification. So, get rid of manipulating the money supply and economy and the rest will sort itself out.
woodpanel 4y ago
Had to fire people in the past. Not an easy thing to do. However, it lifts a lof the weight from your shoulders if you know social security is going to take care of them. Plus, if you reverse the roles here: If you as an employer would prolong their jobs by paying them from your savings until your company/you yourself go bankrupt, none of your employees would return that favor. I've seen it many times.
andrekandre 4y ago
> for countries like India where there is no social security whats the reason for that?
- _448 4y ago
  > whats the reason for that? India is a very huge and diverse country that was under foreign occupation for about two centuries. It is "just" 75 years since the country was independent and completely bankrupt. Add to that red-tape bureaucracy and corruption after independence. Hopefully things will change in a few generations.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  It's interesting to consider the way in which social welfare systems developed. The concept originated in Imperial Germany under Otto Bismark, in the 1880s I believe, though there were precursors in Prussia and elsewhere dating to the 1840s. In the U.S., Social Security was modeled in many ways on the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, including the structure of account numbers (the 3-2-4 format, though RRA accounts begin with an 'R' rather than a numeric digit). This preceded the Social Security Act by only one year. The federal law was in addition to company-based pensions, which were proving problematic. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Retirement_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Retirement_Board> Both the RRA and SSA were passed during a deep financial crisis, the Great Depression. India's history differs in many regards, and I'd suspect that demographics (a large youthful population) play a strong role --- family obligations can substitute for a formal federalised programme. I also suspect that India's somewhat decentralised government (many states operate with a large degree of autonomy) might make for regional programmes, say, in Kerala State, which tends to be much more progressive than other areas, though that's conjecture on my part, I'm not familiar with that aspect of Indian policy or politics. More on contemporary Indian welfare policy here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_India> Interestingly, I've just learned via Wikipedia, India has one of the oldest welfare state traditions dating to the 3rd century BCE under emperor Ashoka: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#India>
- known 4y ago
s5300 4y ago
@op - this is called having no empathy & simply not giving a fuck about anybody but yourself/very close to you. A lot of high class in the USA see other humans here as nothing other than walking meat bags to be exploited for all they’re worth. I’m glad you’re concerned, and I’m glad your sister’s husband has empathy and gives a fuck. Completely seriously. It’s rare in daily life, let alone a medium sized business or corporation.
llamataboot 4y ago
Definitely harder to lay people off when they know them. I can remember my dad not sleeping for weeks after he made it to management because he was going to have to lay off 5 friends. -- That being said, I'm not sure the entire tech industry wouldn't benefit from less friction to switching - hiring is an insanely expensive and very low-signal process - spend 200 hours hiring a person and maybe they fit and work well, maybe they don't. For employees, tech interviews are an insanely time consuming and stressful process where you know they aren't getting much signal. Not unusual to spend 20-60 hours in interviews for just one position. Look for a new job while you are employed? Hope you want 80 hour weeks...and same thing - no idea til you get in there what the culture is actually like, who was blowing smoke at you, if it matches your strengths... And yet, still we continue down the same path of brutal on-sites, workers that feel stuck in a crappy job but definitely have skills to offer in a better place, etc
- yolovoe 4y ago
  I haven't heard of anyone spending 20-60 hours in interviews. Most onsites are remote these days, and the entire interview loop is probably at most 6 hours including phone screen or coding assessment. I find interviewing to be pretty frictionless for the most part. The hardest part is setting some time aside for for leetcode prep.
  - llamataboot 4y ago
    I haven't seen many interview processes less than 10 when we figure some initial rounds, some onsite or technical stuff, last rounds much less all the scheduling in between and the desire for everyone to meet during the work day when you are also working a takehome can easily be 10+ hours onsites have gotten a bit shorter since they went remote, but are still a lot. Let's say 8 hours. That means 5 companies, a whole work week to fit into full work weeks..
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
hamilyon2 4y ago
This comment hits a nerve. I distinctly remember stories of USSR where anyone and everyone was guaranteed a job. People still remember chaos that ensued when that system failed miserably. In retrospective, it kinda had to fail. Production, the heart of economy didn't have to listen to market forces. Market forces were banned. Nobody was laid off, but this was an illusion. To paint even more grim picture, in the 1990ths when people were laid off, first time in their lives, suicide and drug epidemic was soaring. We need to normalize layoffs and tell people that that is going to happen anyway and not the end of the world. Companies will fail. This is normal, this is their function, fail small and protect big.
omar_alt 4y ago
It seems that of all of the contracts that businesses sign the ones they are most keen to terminate abruptly is the employment contracts with their staff.
353996101850446 4y ago
icu 4y ago
I completely agree with the sentiment. If you're an entrepreneur I think you've got a responsibility to your employees who are counting on their paycheck to not screw up. I think where it goes wrong is with entrepreneurs who: a) Come from a financially privileged background and have never experienced living paycheck to paycheck or losing a job they needed due to a "necessary corporate restructure" or staff cuts. b) Come from a 'blitz-growth' ideological stance (and VCs) that see new venture as a winner-take-all 'grow big or blowup' world. These entrepreneurs (and the people backing them) talk about the virtues of teamwork and ethics but it's all secondary to their greed. If I was an employee I would stay away from such people, the problem is employees have no idea who they're working for until it becomes too late. The way I see it, employees are paid first and entrepreneurs (and by extension investors) deserve profits because they're paid last. However, if capitalism is abusive people aren't going to tolerate it and entrepreneurs will find themselves in an ever difficult political environment where taxes will erode the risk premium successful entrepreneurs enjoy.
psychphysic 4y ago
It's quite hard to comment on this broadly around the world. Ultimately, there is an expectation that the employee make themselves a financial safety net considering their job security. 6months expenses is a rough guide. Yes that's a lot of money, yes it'll be hard to accumulate, yes you will have to top up with inflation. I find it shocking that people I know have worked in well paying jobs for 5+ years and have less than a couple months of expenses and no investments. Often a minimal pension.
deleted 4y ago
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laylower 4y ago
Some comments are out of touch with reality. I genuinely don't understand how you are not explicitly addressing the massive corporates and multinational companies that actually *do* have protection and an entrenched position. Some of these layoffs are happening in companies that are posting record earnings and profits. Let's not be naive about it. Certain comments seem to argue for labor liberalism while at the same time retaining preferential treatment for these larger companies. You cannot have it both ways. Either create a truly capitalistic society that allows defaults, free movement of people and capital, create an even playing field for workers or by default lose some of the human capital flexibility that is necessitated by the current corrupt and broken system.
- ttoinou 4y ago
  Yes, true (in the european sense) liberalism at all levels is better than only labor liberalism + legal protections of current companies. But it is still better than "protected" employment + legal protections of current companies
rrwo 4y ago
> Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised. Hardly. Even in developed western countries, being laid off can hurt families and communities. When there are a lot of tech companies and the industry is doing well economically, and you can easily relocate or work remotely, then it's less of a worry. You can find another job with less difficulty. But if you work in another sector like manufacturing, it can be devastating. Especially when a significant portion of the community work in that company or industry. There are large swaths of the US and UK where industrial jobs have disappeared and once prosperous areas have become impoverished in the past 40-50 years. > We have normalised firing of people. That's what happens in societies when the majority of people work for a corporation. The corporations are motivated by profit and will lay off hundreds or thousands of people or abandon a community if it saves money. > I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security.... Many of these "developed" countries have embraced the austerity gospel. There isn't much of a safety net as the was or could be. I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security,
fxtentacle 4y ago
It's been normal in the US for a long time. That's what at-will employment means. You can be fired at any time for no reason.
invest_hero 4y ago
THis largly comes from growth asiprations, while traditional family business usually try to find balance between growth and conservatism. The Startups backed by investors, who fund them for growth accelerate significantly without base or processes and therefore there are high chances to falter. Also traditional family business has human touch where employees are treated like a family and therefore there is loyalty, lesser pay expectations etc Vs startup pay, Esop Expectations and making in to millionare club on the employee side.
Taurenking 4y ago
tdsanchez 4y ago
"I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security" People don't autmatically get paid if they lose their jobs. Welcome to reality, OP.
alanfranz 4y ago
My 2c: 1) If you have a good job (like, more senior positions in software engineering, that pay 2x to 10x what other people make) you should be prepared for them to vanish at some time. But risk is compensated by reward. 2) I still despise large public layoffs, because they take bargaining power from me. Put me on a 6-month PIP, then I know I should leave, I’ll find another job. 3) People that suffer are those in tech sector (risk) but non-tech jobs that don’t always command a good wage. So, they take the risk without the reward. 4) Normalization of layoffs is terrible for lower-paying, non-specialized jobs where finding another is hard and you cannot create a buffer for yourself. That should always be exceptional.
rawfan 4y ago
Depends on the country and sector. Where I work it’s pretty much impossible to fire people. Worst case, positions with older employees are phased out (which still sucks for the teams). That means employees get offered nice retirement packages which they don’t have to accept (but usually do).
coryfklein 4y ago
I'll point out that although news about layoffs makes headlines, unemployment is still at historic lows, and the ratio of unemployed to open job positions is at 1.7 right now, even higher than it was before the pandemic. And all of this is true even after the Fed has raised interest rates faster than ever before in recent history. We don't live in the past where you picked a company and built your relationships and career around it for most of your lifetime. That's what my grandfather did, but it's not how the economy works today. And I see this as a good thing; not only is the human race more productive by having more liquidity in the job market, but as an individual it frees you up – albeit sometimes more forcefully than you like – to shift around until you find the best place for you. I enjoyed 4 out of the first 5 companies I worked for and thought I had things pretty great. But if I had stopped there, I wouldn't have arrived at the company I work at now (number 6) nor had the wisdom to know that I should commit to staying here for 3x longer than any previous company.
flashgordon 4y ago
Wow. Owning the responsibility of wellbeing of 4x num employees personally. After living in the US for almost a decade that kind of empathy sounds alien to the point of absurdity. Especially when a crying ceo justifies firing employees because those built v1 were not capable of building v2. F leadership teams for not building moats or planning properly or showing fiscal responsibility to begin with. It must all be employees fault! I am looking at you Patreon!
notacoward 4y ago
While it's true that firing or laying off people should be taken very seriously, there is a limit to that. Sometimes the real choice is between losing 10% of your workforce now vs. losing everything in a year or two. Not only direct employees but suppliers, partners, even customers who have built their own business on something they can no longer support or maintain. It's a trolley problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem While debates about the trolley problem will likely go on forever, the idea of sacrificing a few for the sake of the many is eminently defensible. Companies should do more to avoid this scenario, governments should (a bit more arguably) do what they can to blunt its effects, everyone should treat it with more solemnity, but it can and will and should happen sometimes.
smsm42 4y ago
Firing is normal. Employment is a relationship. If the sides of the relationship are free, sometimes relationships come to an end. Is it fun for both sides? Not always. Sometimes getting dumped sucks. Sometimes divorce hurts a lot. Sometimes firing ruins your plans. But that's still normal. Nobody owes you a relationship, and the fact that you have plans for it doesn't mean the other side has the same plans. It doesn't mean one should be callous with it, but it does mean ending the relationship that doesn't work for one of the sides anymore - including employment one - is completely normal.
whinvik 4y ago
This is a weird comment especially since the background is that the OP is concerned about it happening in India. For decades we have been unable to creates any jobs at all since we had strict employment hiring/firing rules. And look where that got us. The progress we made was because IT was given special provisions to make hiring/firing easier and that became a job creation machine. If we change this, we will just go back to the previous state. Everywhere I look I see this trade-off so we can't get one without giving up the other in return.

214 points by _448 4y ago

phendrenad2 4y ago

There's always give and take. Trivializing layoffs has made hiring managers okay with hiring employees who were laid off. The ability to lay off employees without destroying the company image allows companies to overhire in times of plenty. So while it's annoying and stressful to interview while laid off, I think that I also received the direct benefit more likely to be hired at random startups because they have that layoff option.

steebo 4y ago

Is it that you feel that the posters are doing the trivializing, or society as a whole? My impression is that nobody treats these layoffs as trivial. Recessions, downturns and the resulting employment uncertainty are cause for anxiety everywhere.

_448 4y ago
> Is it that you feel that the posters are doing the trivializing, or society as a whole? Society as a whole, but more specifically the businesses that do mass layoffs.

zeruch 4y ago

"We have normalised firing of people." We spent decades in the US smashing unions, smashing pensions (replacing them with more volatile instruments like 401Ks) and made at-will employment dangerous for both sides of the equation. Firing has been trivialized for decades. This is not new, and the current wave is minuscule compared to 2008, 2000, and previous. The worst is yet to come.

clumsysmurf 4y ago
And one side wants to smash social security as well https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/republican-plan-cut-medicare-social-security-debt-ceiling-crisis.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/republican-plan-cut-...
jlund-molfese 4y ago
Why would an employee in the tech sector prefer an employer-managed pension? A 401(k) usually allows me to choose what I invest my money in (including bonds), and can be rolled over to a new employer easily. And it’s my money once it’s in my account, not my employer’s money. They can’t require me to work for a certain period of time to get it out, and don’t pay me less to compensate for offering the retirement benefit.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  That is a pension. In the UK they're called Self Invested Personal Pension and basically all companies do them now. But I agree they pretty much only have upsides - no risk of the pension fund going bankrupt (would be good right about now in the UK!) and no way for previous generations to steal from the current one, which is basically what all defined benefit pensions are doing now.
  - jerojero 4y ago
    Well I would guess some people think that living in society means you are always, as a new generation, building on top of what the previous one did. So it is fair that when they can't work anymore we use part of the surplus of productivity that comes precisely from that long-term investment in productivity made by older generations to help them out. To think of that as "stealing" seems pretty individualistic and short-sighted to me. What benefits would the current generation have to give future generations a future if everything that matters is how much you save and do in the now? This line of thinking leads to financial decisions that value the present much more than they do the future and it's in big part a reason why we are in deep waters when it comes to climate change. Of course, I agree that it is important to reward people personally as well. But I think it's much more important that we are building sustainable societies capable of taking care of people all through out their life cycles and that improvements on productivity impact us all because, after all, we all live together. But I guess that's just my personal vision of what a good society should be; for others, as you say, they would rather live in a dog-eat-dog world because they know they would be top dogs.

dredmorbius 4y ago

Your question made me wonder as to the history of employment-based income and the practice of hiring and firing. An ngram for that phrase itself shows a sharp initial onset in the 1910s: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiring+and+firing&year_start=1900&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chiring%20and%20firing%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Chiring%20and%20firing%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=hiring+and+fir...> My understanding is that this was strongly tied to mass production (Fordism, after Henry Ford), which wasn't just factories but also in significant manner railroads (more below), construction projects (structures, civil engineering projects, shipbuilding), and with time, office work. The contrast was with prior regimes of serf or feudal labour, as well as independent farmers, small crafts, artisans, shopkeepers, and professionals, many of whom were in large part independent and often family-oriented businesses. Much of that is now highly consolidated, wage-based employment.

t43562 4y ago

There was and still is a stigma in all countries and social security is something that had to be fought for and which is under continual attack. In the UK it's your mortgage that's the big worry - houses so expensive that you will pay them off for the rest of your life. What happens if you get fired and cannot pay the mortgage?

xupybd 4y ago

Here in new Zealand it's next to impossible to fire someone. We only really do redundancies . If you were fired it must have been serious misconduct.

hparadiz 4y ago
What happens when a company runs out of money? I'm seriously asking.
- bogantech 4y ago
  If the business can't afford the amount of staff they have then they have redundancies i.e people are laid off.
- altacc 4y ago
  Not PP, but in countries where there is employment protection, a company can still officially downsize and make roles redundant and therefore layoff the people in these roles. Those in now redundant roles can technically apply for any new open roles created but either there aren't new roles or management has a good idea who it wants to be in that role. This is actually similar to a lot of tech layoffs, where the company is laying off a large number of people to downsize the company and not rehiring other people into those roles. Where employment protection and unions come in is areas like redundancy pay offs, including potentially retraining; and ensuring that redundancy is not used to target individuals (e.g. making a role redundant to lay someone off and then recreating that role to hire somebody else). If you want to fire somebody there needs to be good cause. Otherwise you "manage them out of the business" by making them unhappy whilst not performing constructive dismissal. This was all a lot of hassle when I was running teams but on the upside, as a manager I was also just an employee and protected by the same laws.

ballofrubber 4y ago

Reducing headcount _should_ be normalised. Here in Germany companies are almost forced to not lay off people. IMO this creates bad dynamics and makes people dependant on companies. If switching company would be easier, workers could demand higher wages etc.

jitix 4y ago

As a silver lining, because we’ve normalized firing, we’ve also normalized jumping ship frequently. Get hikes and save up during good times, skill dev/change course during the recessions. But tbh it’d be better if things didn’t swing so much.

kioleanu 4y ago
I jumped ship quite often in Europe myself, without any problems - 8 or 9 employers in the last 15 years. I think being able to switch between jobs like this is a sign of a competitive job market and not necessarily a by-product of normalized firing

MrPatan 4y ago

This: > Normalising Layoffs/Firing is how you fix this: > stigma is associated with being laid off

ttoinou 4y ago

Firing easily and hiring easily are two sides of the same coin. If you can be fired easily, you will find a job easily. If companies can go down quickly, new companies can be formed in an instant. In Europe where firing is almost impossible, hiring is a very tedious process. Companies are big and look financially stable because the little ones cannot survive or dont enjoy the same monopoly / legal protections. If a company is not useful to society, it should go down. If you're not a good fit with the company, you should find your own way or a better company. Don't idealize employment and companies. They are only tools on our path to wealth and freedom

butterNaN 4y ago
I have been in Europe for a few years now and my experiance is significantly opposite of what the parent comment claims.
- jfoster 4y ago
  That doesn't really make logical sense to me. Can you elaborate? If hiring is an irreversible decision for a company, why wouldn't consideration be required prior to any hire?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hhmc 4y ago
    Having more protections than zero (at will) doesn’t make hiring anything as dramatic as ‘irreversible’
  - snovv_crash 4y ago
    There's usually a considerable probation period where the firing rules are much more relaxed. Germany is typically 6 months, for example.
    - ttoinou 4y ago

junofan 4y ago

Trivializing makes it less of a scarlet letter if you do get laid off or fired. Probably a net benefit for most people in the long run not to risk the business cycle affecting their future employability.

jfoster 4y ago
But also leads to people living less stable lives in general. As an employee, your income could go to zero and you may find yourself thrust into being a job seeker at any time.

jimjimjim 4y ago

A lot of other (western) countries have a lot more legal protection for workers. For instance, your boss can't just say 'You're Fired!' because they are in a bad mood. That's insta lawsuit zone. Even layoffs. A position needs to be disestablished before someone can be laid off. And there are legal steps and consultation periods etc etc.

jlund-molfese 4y ago

It’s not all bad. Having firing as an option in the US makes it palatable for employers to take risks, like hiring the non traditional student, or the person without any industry experience. If at-will employment wasn’t available, companies would react by only hiring when absolutely necessary, and there would be fewer available jobs. Plus, even in the US, some companies offer pensions and are known for almost never laying off or firing people. So you do have the choice of stability if you’re willing to limit the companies you work for. Startups and publicly-traded companies are not the place for those who want a guaranteed job.

IshKebab 4y ago
You don't need fully at-will employment for that. But I do agree with your overall point. If it was literally impossible to fire anyone - rather than just quite difficult - then interviews would be insane. Probation would last years.
- tchalla 4y ago
  > then interviews would be insane. I'm glad tech companies have very simple interview procedures at the moment.

the_optimist 4y ago

Yet we meanwhile worship at the alter of the Fed, seeing only money increased and ruling toward wanton destruction, that individual lives must be sacrificed in reduced employ, consumption, and future.

jimjimjim 4y ago
careful, being disrespectful of the alter will anger the acolytes

tibbydudeza 4y ago

We have very good labor laws much to the disgust of free market, libertarian and pro-business political factions, yes but it NEVER them or management who is fired so they can shove their philosophies. There is a legal process when you need to reduce staff - the bare minimum offer is one week of pay for each year of service - got laid off after 19 years and company expedited the legal process if I volunteered for layoff by offer an extra half a week. It allowed me to pay of my house, my car, short term debt and not worry for income for an entire year.

deleted 4y ago

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onion2k 4y ago

Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised. I don't think it has been. I don't think you can generalize the sentiment of people at a company from the HN post about a PR announcement for how they're cutting staff. When a company announces layoffs they're telling the markets, investors, and the public that they need to make a significant change. That doesn't tell you anything about how the founders, board, HR team, or anyone else feel about the layoffs. FWIW the people I know who work in HR are usually gutted when they have to make jobs redundant. Founders and boards are less so, but usually because they believe it's a choice between jobs cuts and company collapse. Both these things are from very limited exposure to companies making cuts though. Perhaps there are companies and people out there who think it's trivial. That would be sad.

yibberish 4y ago

nope, it's just happening a lot recently, more than usual.

diabolus 4y ago

"They are relying on me. If I mess up, I affect lives of 400 to 600 people. That keeps me awake." This is something I heard many times. And the most of the time, companies with this motto are underpaying and don't give a proper wage to employees to make any passive income or any investment to become less depended on the job. And this motto becomes an excuse for overtime and workload in bad times. A professional work should not be responsible/aware of any daughter's wedding or personal loans. Developed countries have massive taxes to support you on unemployment. Risk of layoff must be part of your salary expectation. Young Startups always pay more than stable companies.

deelly 4y ago
A lot of "should, must, have"... What if "could not, can't, don't have"? Sorry, just to clarify, your point is that this behavior is absolutely normal?

nullcipher 4y ago

> Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised. Yup. Just like we have trivialized climate change, consumerism, mass wastage :-( Ah, capitalism. The devil is in the details.

Test0129 4y ago

> We have normalised firing of people. I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security, but for countries like India where there is no social security and stigma is associated with being laid off, it is a very difficult situation. Not to sound crass here but it seems like you're fishing for virtue. Hiring and firing are normal. A company of 20,000 firing 20% of it's workforce sounds major but that's the industry. It's normalized because it is normal. The field of software engineering is so fungible 20% of employees losing their job is nearly meaningless in the current job market because you can throw and rock and find another seat to warm the next day. It's not like Ford closing a factory. In other words, you need to relax and get out of your head a little. This industry is nothing like the factories. When 20% of factory workers lose their jobs everyone rightfully panics because it's not as easy to get another factory job (at least anymore...here in the west). 20% of tech employees getting laid off from a company is a nothingburger. 99% of these people will be able to take two weeks of free time and find another job for the same (or often better) pay. This is the definition of trivial.

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cyrusshepard 4y ago
Your comment seems to assume that 1) employment levels for software engineers is the same in India 2) that the OP has overstated the social stigma of layoffs in India, and finally 3) the current employment landscape that you find yourself in will last indefinitely. Based on this, I suspect it's highly likely the hubris in this comment will not age well.
- xyproto 4y ago
  Regarding 3), I believe that solving problems and creating systems will always be relevant.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Most startups doing these layoffs are not really solving any real problems. Many are wrapping up existing solutions in a better UI/UX. Which might be nice to have in an upcycle, but in a downtrend, will be the first on the chopping block.

bfung 4y ago

I think the OP’s sentiment is being a better human and in an ideal world, I like and agree on the thought. I try to practice it in my management duties as well. But I’ll be the devil’s advocate and present the harsh reality: How is firing, in the USA, not the actual normal to begin with? As a late Gen X / early millennial, I’ve experienced these economic downturns three times: the fallout of 2001 dotcom bubble, 2008 Great Financial Crisis (GFC), and this Covid shock era. The lessons learned each time, is the corporations try to survive at all costs, and casting many individuals out to fend for themselves is the base case. As a college senior in Computer Science in 2002-2003, my many classmates had jobs lined up in Oct 2002, ready for graduation and work summer 2003. The tech company stocks were flying high, but all of a sudden, in a month, all those companies had cut entire departments. Hearing the news, a lot of friends that thought they had “secured” a job, called those companies and almost all of them were in limbo - those cut departments didn’t even return the calls to say “sorry, entire dept. was cut, start looking again”. My parents generation was used to the “gold watch retirement philosophy”, stick w/one company for 50 years and they will take care of you. That reality shattered for them during the 2008 GFC. They had worked for 20 years at the same company, but faced with layoffs and cuts, they no longer really knew how to interview and learn new skills. As a result, my dad “retired” at 55, always looking but never finding that next job. Luckily, they were in early tech (AT&T), and mom found contracting roles to service the legacy tech they worked on during full employment. The lesson here was that - don’t let those skills and interview skills rot. Being at one place for 20years and specializing can seem like “security”, but actually was a curse after the shock. And here we are now, after ~14 years of relative stability, time to flex those survival instincts, don’t rest on the past comforts.

plaguepilled 4y ago

"I am responsible for their families" might be trivialising the employee's role in ensuring an income and planning for eventualities. (That doesn't mean I support layoffs in the slightest, just that I'm bothered by that line)

spoonjim 4y ago

The alternative to normalized firing is normalized career employment like that which turned Japan into a noncompetitive economy.

badpun 4y ago
Are we sure it's that? They had even stricter rules when they were the economic miracle (1960-1990). I wouldn't be suprised if just crappy demography caught up with them.

intellectronica 4y ago

Every time someone's loses their job they experience some hardship, or at least disappointment, no question about that, though when it comes to tech workers it's hard to feel bad for them (us) because the other side of the equation is the ability to easily get jobs that are very well paid. When laying off people isn't normalized what you get is an inefficient labour market, where companies can't adjust to market conditions and hiring people is too costly. That leads to stunted growth, and everyone loses.

ighostly 4y ago

> where there is no social security This is the root cause problem. The fact that a set of cumulative hiring and firing decisions by employers and potential employers can render someone and their family destitute, is the biggest flaw in the system most of us live in. Not just in the countries mentioned either - we have a global failure of resource allocation.

Adiqq 4y ago
I agree, as long as there is no guarantees for your human rights, we'll continue to live in scary world, where being fired might literally mean death or suicide or becoming criminal. I know that in my country many men took their life, after they lost job, because unless you can quickly find something else, your life can quickly fall apart and most people don't earn enough to have savings and state won't offer you much help. I know that now we talk more often about how this global system is broken, but can we actually do anything about it, if wealthy just amass their wealth and don't want to share? I don't want revolution, but it seems like we need some revolution, so humanity can survive as something more than masses of wage slaves. It's just sad, when I again hear in my company about equality, sustainability, but CEO is making 150-300x my salary and is in top 0.1% by income and I hear that I don't even deserve raise that would match inflation in my country.

pfortuny 4y ago

That example looks good and virtuous. Until you realize that the new boss might perfectly think: “this firm has been giving so much to all those families… maybe they should return something more than just their jobs. I am going to suggest X to introduce his beautiful daughter to my son.” A job is a job. A business is not a family. A boss is not a father. It is great to be virtuous but it is not great to mix contexts.

madis 4y ago

Correct and exactly how it is supposed to work. What do you expect a business owner to do when the job of a worker is not profitable / necessary any more? Pay him forever out of their own pocket, taking a loss? If you've ever hired qualified personnel, you know how hard it is to find good people. No good business owner would fire a good employee for a whim. They'd keep them as long as possible (even when temporarily there's no work) Other thing is if it's easy to re-hire when there is profitable work again. This happens where there's much more offer (of workers) than demand. For example jobs with low cualification. So, get rid of manipulating the money supply and economy and the rest will sort itself out.

woodpanel 4y ago

Had to fire people in the past. Not an easy thing to do. However, it lifts a lof the weight from your shoulders if you know social security is going to take care of them. Plus, if you reverse the roles here: If you as an employer would prolong their jobs by paying them from your savings until your company/you yourself go bankrupt, none of your employees would return that favor. I've seen it many times.

andrekandre 4y ago

> for countries like India where there is no social security whats the reason for that?

_448 4y ago
> whats the reason for that? India is a very huge and diverse country that was under foreign occupation for about two centuries. It is "just" 75 years since the country was independent and completely bankrupt. Add to that red-tape bureaucracy and corruption after independence. Hopefully things will change in a few generations.
dredmorbius 4y ago
It's interesting to consider the way in which social welfare systems developed. The concept originated in Imperial Germany under Otto Bismark, in the 1880s I believe, though there were precursors in Prussia and elsewhere dating to the 1840s. In the U.S., Social Security was modeled in many ways on the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, including the structure of account numbers (the 3-2-4 format, though RRA accounts begin with an 'R' rather than a numeric digit). This preceded the Social Security Act by only one year. The federal law was in addition to company-based pensions, which were proving problematic. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Retirement_Board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Retirement_Board> Both the RRA and SSA were passed during a deep financial crisis, the Great Depression. India's history differs in many regards, and I'd suspect that demographics (a large youthful population) play a strong role --- family obligations can substitute for a formal federalised programme. I also suspect that India's somewhat decentralised government (many states operate with a large degree of autonomy) might make for regional programmes, say, in Kerala State, which tends to be much more progressive than other areas, though that's conjecture on my part, I'm not familiar with that aspect of Indian policy or politics. More on contemporary Indian welfare policy here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_security_in_India> Interestingly, I've just learned via Wikipedia, India has one of the oldest welfare state traditions dating to the 3rd century BCE under emperor Ashoka: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#India>
known 4y ago

s5300 4y ago

@op - this is called having no empathy & simply not giving a fuck about anybody but yourself/very close to you. A lot of high class in the USA see other humans here as nothing other than walking meat bags to be exploited for all they’re worth. I’m glad you’re concerned, and I’m glad your sister’s husband has empathy and gives a fuck. Completely seriously. It’s rare in daily life, let alone a medium sized business or corporation.

llamataboot 4y ago

Definitely harder to lay people off when they know them. I can remember my dad not sleeping for weeks after he made it to management because he was going to have to lay off 5 friends. -- That being said, I'm not sure the entire tech industry wouldn't benefit from less friction to switching - hiring is an insanely expensive and very low-signal process - spend 200 hours hiring a person and maybe they fit and work well, maybe they don't. For employees, tech interviews are an insanely time consuming and stressful process where you know they aren't getting much signal. Not unusual to spend 20-60 hours in interviews for just one position. Look for a new job while you are employed? Hope you want 80 hour weeks...and same thing - no idea til you get in there what the culture is actually like, who was blowing smoke at you, if it matches your strengths... And yet, still we continue down the same path of brutal on-sites, workers that feel stuck in a crappy job but definitely have skills to offer in a better place, etc

yolovoe 4y ago
I haven't heard of anyone spending 20-60 hours in interviews. Most onsites are remote these days, and the entire interview loop is probably at most 6 hours including phone screen or coding assessment. I find interviewing to be pretty frictionless for the most part. The hardest part is setting some time aside for for leetcode prep.
- llamataboot 4y ago
  I haven't seen many interview processes less than 10 when we figure some initial rounds, some onsite or technical stuff, last rounds much less all the scheduling in between and the desire for everyone to meet during the work day when you are also working a takehome can easily be 10+ hours onsites have gotten a bit shorter since they went remote, but are still a lot. Let's say 8 hours. That means 5 companies, a whole work week to fit into full work weeks..
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

hamilyon2 4y ago

This comment hits a nerve. I distinctly remember stories of USSR where anyone and everyone was guaranteed a job. People still remember chaos that ensued when that system failed miserably. In retrospective, it kinda had to fail. Production, the heart of economy didn't have to listen to market forces. Market forces were banned. Nobody was laid off, but this was an illusion. To paint even more grim picture, in the 1990ths when people were laid off, first time in their lives, suicide and drug epidemic was soaring. We need to normalize layoffs and tell people that that is going to happen anyway and not the end of the world. Companies will fail. This is normal, this is their function, fail small and protect big.

omar_alt 4y ago

It seems that of all of the contracts that businesses sign the ones they are most keen to terminate abruptly is the employment contracts with their staff.

353996101850446 4y ago

icu 4y ago

I completely agree with the sentiment. If you're an entrepreneur I think you've got a responsibility to your employees who are counting on their paycheck to not screw up. I think where it goes wrong is with entrepreneurs who: a) Come from a financially privileged background and have never experienced living paycheck to paycheck or losing a job they needed due to a "necessary corporate restructure" or staff cuts. b) Come from a 'blitz-growth' ideological stance (and VCs) that see new venture as a winner-take-all 'grow big or blowup' world. These entrepreneurs (and the people backing them) talk about the virtues of teamwork and ethics but it's all secondary to their greed. If I was an employee I would stay away from such people, the problem is employees have no idea who they're working for until it becomes too late. The way I see it, employees are paid first and entrepreneurs (and by extension investors) deserve profits because they're paid last. However, if capitalism is abusive people aren't going to tolerate it and entrepreneurs will find themselves in an ever difficult political environment where taxes will erode the risk premium successful entrepreneurs enjoy.

psychphysic 4y ago

It's quite hard to comment on this broadly around the world. Ultimately, there is an expectation that the employee make themselves a financial safety net considering their job security. 6months expenses is a rough guide. Yes that's a lot of money, yes it'll be hard to accumulate, yes you will have to top up with inflation. I find it shocking that people I know have worked in well paying jobs for 5+ years and have less than a couple months of expenses and no investments. Often a minimal pension.

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laylower 4y ago

Some comments are out of touch with reality. I genuinely don't understand how you are not explicitly addressing the massive corporates and multinational companies that actually *do* have protection and an entrenched position. Some of these layoffs are happening in companies that are posting record earnings and profits. Let's not be naive about it. Certain comments seem to argue for labor liberalism while at the same time retaining preferential treatment for these larger companies. You cannot have it both ways. Either create a truly capitalistic society that allows defaults, free movement of people and capital, create an even playing field for workers or by default lose some of the human capital flexibility that is necessitated by the current corrupt and broken system.

ttoinou 4y ago
Yes, true (in the european sense) liberalism at all levels is better than only labor liberalism + legal protections of current companies. But it is still better than "protected" employment + legal protections of current companies

rrwo 4y ago

> Some how firing/laying-off has been trivialised. Hardly. Even in developed western countries, being laid off can hurt families and communities. When there are a lot of tech companies and the industry is doing well economically, and you can easily relocate or work remotely, then it's less of a worry. You can find another job with less difficulty. But if you work in another sector like manufacturing, it can be devastating. Especially when a significant portion of the community work in that company or industry. There are large swaths of the US and UK where industrial jobs have disappeared and once prosperous areas have become impoverished in the past 40-50 years. > We have normalised firing of people. That's what happens in societies when the majority of people work for a corporation. The corporations are motivated by profit and will lay off hundreds or thousands of people or abandon a community if it saves money. > I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security.... Many of these "developed" countries have embraced the austerity gospel. There isn't much of a safety net as the was or could be. I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security,

fxtentacle 4y ago

It's been normal in the US for a long time. That's what at-will employment means. You can be fired at any time for no reason.

invest_hero 4y ago

THis largly comes from growth asiprations, while traditional family business usually try to find balance between growth and conservatism. The Startups backed by investors, who fund them for growth accelerate significantly without base or processes and therefore there are high chances to falter. Also traditional family business has human touch where employees are treated like a family and therefore there is loyalty, lesser pay expectations etc Vs startup pay, Esop Expectations and making in to millionare club on the employee side.

Taurenking 4y ago

tdsanchez 4y ago

"I don't know about the "developed" countries where people have social security" People don't autmatically get paid if they lose their jobs. Welcome to reality, OP.

alanfranz 4y ago

My 2c: 1) If you have a good job (like, more senior positions in software engineering, that pay 2x to 10x what other people make) you should be prepared for them to vanish at some time. But risk is compensated by reward. 2) I still despise large public layoffs, because they take bargaining power from me. Put me on a 6-month PIP, then I know I should leave, I’ll find another job. 3) People that suffer are those in tech sector (risk) but non-tech jobs that don’t always command a good wage. So, they take the risk without the reward. 4) Normalization of layoffs is terrible for lower-paying, non-specialized jobs where finding another is hard and you cannot create a buffer for yourself. That should always be exceptional.

rawfan 4y ago

Depends on the country and sector. Where I work it’s pretty much impossible to fire people. Worst case, positions with older employees are phased out (which still sucks for the teams). That means employees get offered nice retirement packages which they don’t have to accept (but usually do).

coryfklein 4y ago

I'll point out that although news about layoffs makes headlines, unemployment is still at historic lows, and the ratio of unemployed to open job positions is at 1.7 right now, even higher than it was before the pandemic. And all of this is true even after the Fed has raised interest rates faster than ever before in recent history. We don't live in the past where you picked a company and built your relationships and career around it for most of your lifetime. That's what my grandfather did, but it's not how the economy works today. And I see this as a good thing; not only is the human race more productive by having more liquidity in the job market, but as an individual it frees you up – albeit sometimes more forcefully than you like – to shift around until you find the best place for you. I enjoyed 4 out of the first 5 companies I worked for and thought I had things pretty great. But if I had stopped there, I wouldn't have arrived at the company I work at now (number 6) nor had the wisdom to know that I should commit to staying here for 3x longer than any previous company.

flashgordon 4y ago

Wow. Owning the responsibility of wellbeing of 4x num employees personally. After living in the US for almost a decade that kind of empathy sounds alien to the point of absurdity. Especially when a crying ceo justifies firing employees because those built v1 were not capable of building v2. F leadership teams for not building moats or planning properly or showing fiscal responsibility to begin with. It must all be employees fault! I am looking at you Patreon!

notacoward 4y ago

While it's true that firing or laying off people should be taken very seriously, there is a limit to that. Sometimes the real choice is between losing 10% of your workforce now vs. losing everything in a year or two. Not only direct employees but suppliers, partners, even customers who have built their own business on something they can no longer support or maintain. It's a trolley problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem While debates about the trolley problem will likely go on forever, the idea of sacrificing a few for the sake of the many is eminently defensible. Companies should do more to avoid this scenario, governments should (a bit more arguably) do what they can to blunt its effects, everyone should treat it with more solemnity, but it can and will and should happen sometimes.

smsm42 4y ago

Firing is normal. Employment is a relationship. If the sides of the relationship are free, sometimes relationships come to an end. Is it fun for both sides? Not always. Sometimes getting dumped sucks. Sometimes divorce hurts a lot. Sometimes firing ruins your plans. But that's still normal. Nobody owes you a relationship, and the fact that you have plans for it doesn't mean the other side has the same plans. It doesn't mean one should be callous with it, but it does mean ending the relationship that doesn't work for one of the sides anymore - including employment one - is completely normal.

whinvik 4y ago

This is a weird comment especially since the background is that the OP is concerned about it happening in India. For decades we have been unable to creates any jobs at all since we had strict employment hiring/firing rules. And look where that got us. The progress we made was because IT was given special provisions to make hiring/firing easier and that became a job creation machine. If we change this, we will just go back to the previous state. Everywhere I look I see this trade-off so we can't get one without giving up the other in return.