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An effective strategy to avoid layoffs at European offices is to cause just enough friction to get HR to give up and divert the firing to lower-rights countries

An effective strategy to avoid layoffs at European offices is to cause just enough friction to get HR to give up and divert the firing to lower-rights countries (i.e. USA).

nonethewiser 4y ago
I don’t think that’s how it works
sokoloff 4y ago
There's a short-term effect there that might be positive, but a long-term effect that would be negative. There's a reason that a lot of companies won't hire in France or other specific locales where the difficulty in getting out of an employment relationship is so high that it makes it undesirable to get into that relationship in the first place.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  Yes but you do actually want access to the French market so you will likely need employees in France.
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    You hire the bare minimum. Also, the French market is within the EU/EEA, so there's always Switzerland right next door (plus CH also supports German and Italian markets so you can merge your DACH, Francophone, and Italian operations in one country).
    - figassis 4y ago
      I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). This goes for all countries.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        Does France not have income taxes? Taxing the income of Google engineers seems fairly attractive to me.
      - nordsieck 4y ago
        > I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). Some jobs are location dependent (e.g. plumber). Some jobs are location independent (e.g. software engineer). While it's true that globally, a company will hire a minimum number of total jobs, most countries would prefer that as many high paying, location independent jobs be done within their borders.
  - 908B64B197 4y ago
    > so you will likely need employees in France. A few but not a lot. You would need a corporate entity, a sales team if you do B2B or want to get government contracts and a few employees to deal with the special snowflakes regulations and keep up with what the bureaucrats are making up. But you don't need engineers specifically in France. Even localization can be contracted out, since it's a well defined scope. Not only that, but France is right next to Switzerland where there's a concentration of French engineering talent. That and, it's relatively straightforward for these guys to just transfer to the Bay Area.
- brap 4y ago
  Bingo. Google wasn’t able to layoff anyone in France. What a great win, right? Well. Once they decide they need to close off a site, where do you think France will be on that list? Or if things are going good and they want to hire an additional 5K engineers, do you think France is a good candidate? All of this ultimately leads to fewer jobs and lower wages. Just look at tech wages in France. When you sabotage doing business in your country, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
  - pyrale 4y ago
    > Just look at tech wages in France. I'm happy to have a wage that lets me live comfortably instead of royally, if that means other people live decently instead of precariously.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
In the UK, there is nothing they can do against layoffs. The only thing is that if the planned layoffs impact more than 20 people (from memory) there must be a consultation. This only makes the process one month longer. I am also expecting that Google is paying more than the legal minimum to laid off people, which is really the only thing worth trying to negotiate.
charlieyu1 4y ago
That’s why wages are low in UK compared to USA.
robswc 4y ago
It seems an especially bad time to signal to companies that investing and innovating in Europe is more difficult.
ilikehurdles 4y ago
That’s why European divisions of major companies exist for two reasons today: 1. An executive’s or senior director’s résumé fodder 2. GDPR compliance Innovation is attracted to free and efficient markets.
refurb 4y ago
Having been involved finances at a multi-national, i doubt this works. Each country is it’s own free standing company with it’s own P&L. And combined profit is what rolls up into annual reports. I highly doubt a company like Google would let a country ride with poor profit dragging down earnings per share. And on top, they arent going to risk US revenue (likely several multiples of most countries in Europe) by firing people they actually need just to avoid laying people off in another country. It’s cheaper to just do the bare minimum of whatever the country requires for lay offs and be more careful hiring next time to avoid layoffs in the future.

An effective strategy to avoid layoffs at European offices is to cause just enough friction to get HR to give up and divert the firing to lower-rights countries (i.e. USA).

nonethewiser 4y ago

I don’t think that’s how it works

sokoloff 4y ago

There's a short-term effect there that might be positive, but a long-term effect that would be negative. There's a reason that a lot of companies won't hire in France or other specific locales where the difficulty in getting out of an employment relationship is so high that it makes it undesirable to get into that relationship in the first place.

theGnuMe 4y ago
Yes but you do actually want access to the French market so you will likely need employees in France.
- alephnerd 4y ago
  You hire the bare minimum. Also, the French market is within the EU/EEA, so there's always Switzerland right next door (plus CH also supports German and Italian markets so you can merge your DACH, Francophone, and Italian operations in one country).
  - figassis 4y ago
    I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). This goes for all countries.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Does France not have income taxes? Taxing the income of Google engineers seems fairly attractive to me.
    - nordsieck 4y ago
      > I always thought that, redundancies aside, bare minimum was the only way to hire. So why should France want a company to hire 100x more engineers than it needs (and can/will fire at the slightest earnings glitch). Some jobs are location dependent (e.g. plumber). Some jobs are location independent (e.g. software engineer). While it's true that globally, a company will hire a minimum number of total jobs, most countries would prefer that as many high paying, location independent jobs be done within their borders.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > so you will likely need employees in France. A few but not a lot. You would need a corporate entity, a sales team if you do B2B or want to get government contracts and a few employees to deal with the special snowflakes regulations and keep up with what the bureaucrats are making up. But you don't need engineers specifically in France. Even localization can be contracted out, since it's a well defined scope. Not only that, but France is right next to Switzerland where there's a concentration of French engineering talent. That and, it's relatively straightforward for these guys to just transfer to the Bay Area.
brap 4y ago
Bingo. Google wasn’t able to layoff anyone in France. What a great win, right? Well. Once they decide they need to close off a site, where do you think France will be on that list? Or if things are going good and they want to hire an additional 5K engineers, do you think France is a good candidate? All of this ultimately leads to fewer jobs and lower wages. Just look at tech wages in France. When you sabotage doing business in your country, you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
- pyrale 4y ago
  > Just look at tech wages in France. I'm happy to have a wage that lets me live comfortably instead of royally, if that means other people live decently instead of precariously.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

In the UK, there is nothing they can do against layoffs. The only thing is that if the planned layoffs impact more than 20 people (from memory) there must be a consultation. This only makes the process one month longer. I am also expecting that Google is paying more than the legal minimum to laid off people, which is really the only thing worth trying to negotiate.

charlieyu1 4y ago

That’s why wages are low in UK compared to USA.

robswc 4y ago

It seems an especially bad time to signal to companies that investing and innovating in Europe is more difficult.

ilikehurdles 4y ago

That’s why European divisions of major companies exist for two reasons today: 1. An executive’s or senior director’s résumé fodder 2. GDPR compliance Innovation is attracted to free and efficient markets.

refurb 4y ago

Having been involved finances at a multi-national, i doubt this works. Each country is it’s own free standing company with it’s own P&L. And combined profit is what rolls up into annual reports. I highly doubt a company like Google would let a country ride with poor profit dragging down earnings per share. And on top, they arent going to risk US revenue (likely several multiples of most countries in Europe) by firing people they actually need just to avoid laying people off in another country. It’s cheaper to just do the bare minimum of whatever the country requires for lay offs and be more careful hiring next time to avoid layoffs in the future.