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> The flexibility of the labour market helps employment adapt to shifting patterns of demand. Already many of the workers in America who were laid off from Alph

• crop_rotation 3y ago
  The European approach makes a lot of sense in other stable industries (Automobile/Steel). But in a fast moving quick changing (e.g. Tech) industries, all it does is prevent new risky companies from starting and making it harder for them to adapt. Maybe it is a good thing. But only time can tell that. So far to me it seems like the American approach is winning economy wise.
  • camillomiller 3y ago
    It’s also generating insane levels of inequality, so it really only works if you subscribe to the capitalistic illusion that GDP is a good indicator of the success of a society.
    • ramraj07 3y ago
      At least in the tech world calling the layoffs as increasing inequality is not exactly the same.
    • satvikpendem 3y ago
      Well, the concepts of regulated free markets, free trade between nations, and generally free immigration have created the single largest increase in human living standards in history.
      • justinclift 3y ago
        > single largest increase in human living standards. That's a good point. It'd be useful if the US could raise it's game for it's citizens, and let them participate in that too. :)
        • satvikpendem 3y ago
          Ask someone from a hundred years ago how it's going today and you'll have your answer.
          • justinclift 3y ago
            There wasn't a question. ;)
      • camillomiller 3y ago
        Check your facts. As much as I am a firm European democrat, you might wanna see what Chinese “state driven capitalist communism” has done between 1975 and today. Again, if the measure is number of people lifted out of poverty, China wins hands down. Now, as much as we can’t consider China’s success without considering the lack of freedoms inscribed within the communist social pact, we can’t take just the good of American capitalism by only using gdp or trade volume as an indicator, because - again - inequality and lack of basic human needs and life safety wouldn’t be included. Reference: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l...
        • DwnVoteHoneyPot 3y ago
          Check your perspective. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea all industrialized faster and have a higher standard of living than China. All did it in the 1980s - 40 years ago. All did it without oppressive communism.
          • 3y ago
    • crop_rotation 3y ago
      I can see the pros of the European approach, but reducing equality can not be the only goal. If the economy keeps falling behind, the median standard of living will keep dropping. A strong economy can adopt higher taxes and more social services due to election pressures. A fallen behind economy will find it much harder to jump back. The other problem is that tons of European talent keeps going to the US. The people who have the skills to make higher wages might not care about inequality too much, since they would be the ones benefitting from it. I am not sure how Europe can solve that though.
  • Timon3 3y ago
    Economy-wise maybe, but there is more to workers rights than that. They also affect things like life expectancy and quality of life.
  • bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    There is no actual European approach, there are different levels of worker's rights across various industries and in different countries. In Denmark if you have been working for more than a month than when you are fired you have a certain amount of time that you get paid (unless you find a new job), but you still have to work for them if the company wants you to. In the tech industry it is generally 3 months and they don't want you to work during that period.
  • mikepurvis 3y ago
    I think “winning” really depends on your criteria for success. Maybe it’s winning on overall metrics like GDP, but on an individual level, the story is far less clear. Like, is it winning to have the option of starting a company that produces generational wealth for yourself, while living in a city unable to solve its homelessness problem? Is it winning to be a 1%-er but have no safety net so that you're always precarious, at risk of being wiped out by factors you have no control over? Is it winning to have a school system so dysfunctional that you send your kids to private schools that most of your neighbors can't afford? I expect that from a perspective that prioritizes stability, safety, and sustainability, a model where it's hard to be fired and companies are encouraged to take long term responsibility for their employees (and therefore grow slowly) makes a lot of sense.
    • Gareth321 3y ago
      > I think “winning” really depends on your criteria for success. Maybe it’s winning on overall metrics like GDP, but on an individual level, the story is far less clear. This is an excellent point. America does an exceptional job of making rich people richer, but it also ranks poorly in many quality of life metrics. It is now #25 on the social progress index (https://www.socialprogress.org/ https://www.socialprogress.org/). If people are richer but their children are more likely to die in child birth (U.S. ranks #50), or be murdered (U.S. ranks #137 in homicide), is that really better?
      • nemo44x 3y ago
        [flagged]
        • brewdad 3y ago
          You can build an amazing life for yourself in the US and yet be one medical crisis away from ruin. I wish you well but you appear to lack empathy for those who did everything “right” but were dealt a crap hand by fate or circumstances out of their control.
          • 3y ago
  • fkcgnad 3y ago
    Yes but European economies benefit from the American approach without all the downsides. You guys got Google and smartphones and AI in the past couple decades. Europeans lack technical innovation and they don't need it because the innovation comes from somewhere else before percolating into the European economy for free. The European approach is the winning approach so long as at least one country does all the hard work.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • jsnell 3y ago
    Small companies are typically exempt from mass layoff regulations. And obviously nobody can force a failed company to continue operating. That should cover most of the "risky new company" case. Maybe there's some marginal effect in the willingness of established companies entering risky new business.
• Joeri 3y ago
  Google spoke about this: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-matt-brittin-memo-europe-uk-2023-1?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/google-layoffs-matt-brittin-... In my country (belgium) in case of a mass layoff the employer has to first work together with unions to find a way to keep the employees on board, and when no alternative is found has to help the employees find a new job. Also, for workers who were hired long enough ago they may fall under an employment regime where the notice period keeps going up, and may become as much as 15 months. That law was changed a number of years back, but existing contracts were grandfathered into the old system. That may complicate the decision over who to fire.
  • duxup 3y ago
    I worked at a company who had an office in Belgium. We were consolidating offices. Same story ~15 months, of process. Offer employment elsewhere, more grace periods of where every employee takes the full time to consider the offer… just to collect a paycheck and say no. It was a mess, and in the meantime most of that office was at best worthless / some folks just disruptive. Many of these were capable people, highly employable, but they weren’t productive at all during this time. I got along with some folks in that office, I really don’t think all that time did them any good. I think the intent behind the laws in play at that time and how individuals used them was very different.
    • brewdad 3y ago
      Does that company still have a Belgium office? If so, they obviously disagree with your assessment of the value of those employees.
      • duxup 3y ago
        No.
• dauertewigkeit 3y ago
  It works as long as demand is high, which is true for the US tech job market but not so true for the EU tech job market.
  • wyager 3y ago
    ... which is to a large degree because hiring and firing in the EU is so encumbered by red tape.
• ttul 3y ago
  America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. In a century marked by rapid technological change, it is probably better to hybridize the American and European approaches, allowing faster bankruptcies and more flexible job termination in Europe while also providing a more generous safety net in the US. But American progress is senselessly hobbled by a broken democratic model that has failed to rebalance policy making power toward the democratic center as people have moved into cities and away from the family farm. Until the country enacts reforms that fix this imbalance, other countries that find their way to greater dynamism by emulating the best of US policies may find they are leaping ahead of America. And many countries are well positioned to make such a move. For example, Canada already has free healthcare and generous family credits that rebalance wealth automatically to the bottom, promoting labour mobility. Yet it also has a flexible labour policy, efficient courts, excellent corporation law, and fast bankruptcy resolution. Add in a well designed skills-based immigration process and you have the recipe for something great. I am not saying Canada doesn’t have its problems (First Nations reconciliation and poverty, protectionist industries such as Telecoms to name two), but the political system is more adaptable and these problems can be solved. I’m less optimistic that the US will fix its democratic imbalance.
  • lostlogin 3y ago
    > America operates on the principal that it is better to fail quickly and rebuild than it is to defend what’s not working to preserve the status quo for as long as possible. Banks seems exempt from this. I’m not financially savvy enough to know if bailing out banks is good or bad. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...
    • brookst 3y ago
      Utilities in general even. Nobody wants municipal water supplies failing quickly. But for core commercial actives it seems like a fair observation.
• alexpotato 3y ago
  There was a mention in, I believe, an NPR article(or podcast) many years ago about Europe vs America. The main thrust was that someone from Chicago can easily start a job in New York with little to no cultural adjustment or misunderstandings. In Europe, the situation was quite different with e.g. a Spaniard working with Germans etc. The claim was that someone ended up writing a book called "Managing Spaniards if you are a German".
• safety1st 3y ago
  Labor laws in various countries tend to push companies toward one end or the other of a spectrum. One end of the spectrum is hire fast/fire fast, the other is hire slow/fire slow. The US is very much toward the hire fast/fire fast end of the spectrum, relatively speaking. For tech companies in particular hire fast/fire fast seems to have worked well. It creates a more competitive labor market. That makes sense because tech is a new industry where things are changing all the time, skills are evolving, so it benefits from a labor pool which can adapt quickly. Is it good for workers though? Many people would say it isn't great. You become an employee for the sake of stability and in a hire fast/fire fast culture, you have less of that. It's not so good for quality of life when you're always afraid of losing your job. The counter-argument is that in a situation where it's hard to replace people the cream doesn't necessarily rise to the top and there are less opportunities for top performers to get paid what they're worth (a common complaint in European tech). If you don't mind getting out there and marketing yourself and playing the job market aggressively, you can make a lot of money. If you would rather avoid all that it's a source of anxiety and something you want to avoid. One place where I think the US system has it wrong though, is in tying health care to employment. This is catastrophically bad from a quality of life standpoint and bad for keeping the labor market fluid as well because it creates perverse incentives which are unrelated to whether someone's actually good at their job or not. Overall I'm personally of the view that it's good for different parts of the world to have different ways of doing things, and if you truly can't stand the overall package you're getting on a particular continent, maybe you should move. (I did and I don't regret it. I might do it again one day. I am continually surprised by how many people seem to utterly hate the place they live, and yet don't leave it!)
  • dauertewigkeit 3y ago
    Your comment really highlights the absurdity of having a one-size-fits-all policy across the whole labour market. But ultimately I don't think it is labour laws that made it so that OpenAI is American and ChatGPT was developed in the US. That is just one aspect of a much bigger picture.
    • bjornsing 3y ago
• WalterBright 3y ago
  Free markets are a process of creative destruction. Capital (money and labor) are continuously reallocated to more productive purposes. Adding friction to that leads to a less productive economy.