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I worked with a guy who came up as an engineer in the Soviet Union. Back around 2014 he was laid off from a US tech company that had moved him over from Russia.
by UncleOxidant 4y ago
I worked with a guy who came up as an engineer in the Soviet Union. Back around 2014 he was laid off from a US tech company that had moved him over from Russia. He couldn't wrap his head around it. Said that in the Soviet Union there was no such thing as a layoff. If they needed to shut down some program they'd move you to another one. The whole layoff was just extremely disorienting for him - especially since the company had moved him over here only a few years prior.
- slt2021 4y agohighly educated engineers were paid like 100 rubles/mo, which is slightly above minimum wage. Why lay off people, when state can afford to keep them on minimum wage? and reap the benefit of their work (rockets, weapons, tanks, nukes, etc)
- UncleOxidant 4y agoExactly, the state spent a lot of money (and/or resources) to train an engineer it would be best to keep him/her working as much as possible. Here we lay highly trained engineers off and they could be idle for several months. Lots of disadvantages to central planning, but realizing that it's expensive to keep highly educated resources idle they would try to maximize their usage. " highly educated engineers were paid like 100 rubles/mo, which is slightly above minimum wage." I think it's kind of hard to quantify based on salary alone in a system like that. People in more prestige positions like engineers & scientists had access to things that others might not have: a better apartment, better schools for their kids, shops that had a better supply of goods.