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As you so sarcastically point out, Americans give up many employment rights such as these. But it's not a one-way street. Being easier to fire makes American e

As you so sarcastically point out, Americans give up many employment rights such as these. But it's not a one-way street. Being easier to fire makes American employees easier to hire, which is at least in part responsible for much higher pay in the USA compared to employee havens such as Europe. Furthermore, Americans tend to pay less tax. This isn't usually thought of as an employee rights issue, but in my mind, keeping more of your money = stronger property rights

oldandboring 3y ago
This is a refreshing comment to read. HN and Reddit discussions about employment in the US is often just a dumpster fire of "America bad", half-baked theories and observations from the perspective of the employee, where US workers have no rights and would be rioting in the streets if we hadn't been brainwashed by corporate media. Here on earth, what you wrote is much closer to the truth. The American economy is awash with opportunities to work for small businesses, with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  > with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny What about the European system prevents that for the employee?
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    That we don't have hire and fire, meaning when you take a new job it comes with all kinds of regulations for the company - making them not wanting to change people so often. Otherwise we surely can do this in europe as well, just with a little bit more friction.
    - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
      So it in theory adds more opportunities for the worker, assuming they are in high demand. Of course, if a European leaves their company they don't lose their health coverage.
      - FredPret 3y ago
        It also creates demand even for low-skilled work, since there are more low-margin / seasonal businesses that are feasible under the easy-come-easy-go system.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >What about the European system prevents that for the employee? From personal experience: 1. Less employment opportunities due to no VC funding, and risk averse mentality of entrepreneurs meaning next to no big EU SW product companies. That's why the best paying jobs in EU tech scene are mostly US companies, which also tend to be clustered in only a few cities in the EU, where housing is now a major issue. 2. Employment and tax laws. 100% cross-country employment across the EU is still not a thing, as every government wants taxes be paid in their country, so they have the laws and bureaucracy in place to make sure jobs and tax revenue don't leave their country, so living in a country while being employed in another is incredibly rare as an employee and not a B-2-B contractor. 3. The big one: Language barriers and bureaucracy differing from country to country means huge friction and risk when moving to a country you're not familiar with, along with the added overhead of learning a new language on top of having a full time job plus the challenge of building new social circles with a different language and culture. I've seen many people leave a country due to the culture shock, language barrier and isolation that lead to, despite them being friendly people and productive workers. This might even be a fun challenge to deal with when you're young and single, but when you have a spouse and maybe even a child, things get even more complicated fast when it comes to immigration, finding a house or a job, especially if your spouse doesn't work in tech or any other career where English is normalized at work, or even needs their credentials translated and locally equivalated by the authorities to be eligible for employment. I've met many expat couples where one works in tech and their non-tech spouse has been unemployed for months/years due to their education, skills and experience not being recognized in the new country. Some EU countries really love bureaucracy, credentials, and don't tolerate you not speaking the local language. A friend of mine got laid off as part of his company going bankrupt with his last two wages going unpaid. The bureaucracy, letter bombardment and appointments in dealing with the authorities to try to recoup those two months wages, all having to be done in German, a foreign language to him(and me), makes the experience completely exhausting and I can feel he just wants to give up on those unpaid wages. Imagine someone from Ohio having to learn a new language when moving to California and then another language when moving to New York. Not having to deal with bureaucracy in a foreign language for every state is a huge asset for the US and a weakness of the EU labor mobility. The fix could be easy, mandate English as a second language for bureaucracy in every EU country, but I can name a few countries (not the Northern ones) where I know they'd rather see the world burn than adopt English. It's one of the reason why the UK and Ireland are the top destinations for EU migration, at least that was the case for UK before Brexit. 4. Racism, xenofobia, discrimination and glass ceilings from the locals, when you come from the "wrong" country, have a "wrong" sounding name or the "wrong" skin color.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "The American economy is awash with opportunities to work for small businesses, with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny. " If they all are all happy and free to chart their own destiny - why are those contract things then pretty much standard in the US (as it seems to me)? And maybe things are not perfect on either side of the atlantic? I would be fine with less regulations and hire and fire here in europe btw - but I would be not OK, having to sign such contracts. But I don't see, why we can't have both. Meaning employee respecting contracts - but not mandated from above.
  - winstonprivacy 3y ago
    > why are those contract things then pretty much standard in the US (as it seems to me)? They aren't standard by any means.
    - halostatue 3y ago
      Severance NDAs and noncompetes have been increasingly used against minimum wage workers. Imagine not being able to get a job at Quiznos because you worked at Jimmy John's, which at one point had such a noncompete. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement-idUSKBN13W2JA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement-idU...) When things that we are used to (but unhappy with) because our jobs involve a lot of proprietary technological secrets trickle down to sandwich shop minimum wage workers…it’s not worth saying that they’re not standard. There’s a reason that multiple state legislatures are working to ban noncompetes entirely, and it’s not because they’re uncommon. https://archive.is/kLOFV https://archive.is/kLOFV
- code_runner 3y ago
  its always pretty shocking to me how much things turn into this weird us v them mentality when its really just two different systems with plenty of pros and cons. Every system could be improved and if you prefer one the other isn't by default inherently evil. People within both systems can suck.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    This is so true. I didn't mean to dunk on the European system - just wanted to point out that the US system is not without significant advantages. I'm from Africa and both places are like heaven on earth in comparison.
- grecy 3y ago
  > with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny. I've always found it much easier to "chart my own destiny" when my healthcare is guaranteed, forever, for free, whether I have a job or not.
playing_colours 3y ago
In Germany we have probation period of 6 months that helps both sides to decide if they want to continue employment. Can you please explain the causation between easiness of firing / hiring and high salaries?
- FredPret 3y ago
  Well probation isn't really what I was talking about. That's sort of a pre-employment notice period. I'm talking about a post-employment notice period. How much notice does the employee get between getting fired and then no longer receiving paycheques? Basically, how much severance does the company have to pay? Add to this any red tape involved in firing someone. Now look at it from the point of view of the company. If I, the business owner, know that I have to comply with a raft of regulations and pay several months' severance to fire someone, I'll be very reluctant to hire them in the first place. I'll jump through hoops, work late nights, outsource the job, do anything I can to avoid hiring someone. On the other hand, if I'm in an at-will state in the US, you can fire someone for no reason with zero notice. Seems crazy right? But it means I won't even think twice about hiring someone either. Could they maybe help on a project? Sure, hire them! Frequently one thing leads to another and employees stay on for a long time anyway. Now in the second case the same number of companies with the same capital available will end up hiring lots more people due to the lower friction. Make it easy to get out of a situation, and more people will want to get into that situation.
- hirako2000 3y ago
  What I understood is that it's pretty easy to fire someone in the US without cause. Pretty impossible in most countries in Europe.
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    Correct, although there is a legal conundrum. If you fire someone without cause, they can claim that you actually did have a cause, and it's one of the illegal causes. So, it's safer to compile evidence and fire someone for any legal cause -- of which "did not meet company needs" is generally safest. Even safer is offering them a departure settlement of money and/or insurance coverage, in exchange for which they won't sue you.
jraby3 3y ago
I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring.
- jylam 3y ago
  > "I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. " less risk, you used the wrong word. If they can fire easily, they take less risk by hiring. That's more risk for the employee though, you miss the fact that most of the people is not HN, and they don't get paid 6 or 7 figures and don't find a job in days if they really need to.
  - profile53 3y ago
    I think they take less risk in each hiring decision and because of that, can take on more risky / less proven candidates, ergo more risk acceptance in the hiring practices.
    - 6D794163636F756 3y ago
      To rephrase, you're saying that US companies are able to more quickly divest from failed ideas so they are more willing to take on a venture that's not likely to succeed (risky) because failure will not hurt them as much (less risky). This is a scoping issue, the action contains the risk because the system has mitigated it.
  - kogus 3y ago
    You are right - but because each hire is less risky, a US company can afford to take the risk of hiring for an "experimental" role that may not work out. I think this additional risk is what they were referring to.
- 3y ago
yCombLinks 3y ago
We pay less tax, but pay for health insurance rather than having taxes pay for healthcare.
- halostatue 3y ago
  It’s often not even true that Americans pay a lower tax amount or rate, unless you’re at the richest ends of the scale. (~25 years ago, my wife and I both made about $50–55k; she ended up paying a lower total amount of tax in Canada than I did in the US, and I had the shitty American healthcare system with $15 copays. Needless to say, I emigrated.) There are regressive taxes (e.g., sales taxes / VAT) which are certainly lower in America than most of the rest of the world, and some American states deliberately starve their government of income so that they cannot be obligated to provide basic services and instead shift things to user fees.
  - FredPret 3y ago
    Canada is more in line with US for taxes. In Europe, even middle class people pay 40-50% tax.
johneth 3y ago
I think there's a middle ground between 'at-will employment capitalist hellscape' America and 'unable to be fired for months socialist hellscape' Europe.
- unmole 3y ago
  What does labour regulation have to to do with socialism?
  - johneth 3y ago
    I'm being hyperbolic, using the American bastardisation of the word 'socialism'. I'd put myself on the Europe-side of employment law/regulation ideals.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  There are no socialist countries in Europe. Every country in Europe is capitalist.
- FredPret 3y ago
  It's probably helpful to point out neither is in any way close to being a hellscape, and the people in both places have done a wonderful job building up a civilization that suits them.
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  Europe is much more of a middle ground than the opposite end of the spectrum.
- switch007 3y ago
  > 'unable to be fired for months socialist hellscape' Europe A small handful of countries in Europe*
- nmfisher 3y ago
  Generally I've always found the underlying principle behind the Australian system[0] to be a reasonable middle ground. Those making less than a certain amount can only be terminated: a) immediately for cause (theft/fraud/etc) b) with notice for poor performance c) with notice and a legislated payout for redundancy where the job is no longer required. Those earning above a certain amount need to negotiate any/all of these into their contract. Admittedly it does occasionally result in employees being reinstated whose sacking was (IMO) completely justified. I don't like those specific instances, but I figure it's the price you have to pay for a system that is tilted slightly in favour of employees. [0] The actual laws are rubbish though, they're intentionally obtuse/vague owing to industrial relations being a political minefield and no government wanting to touch it for fear of voter pushback.
esquivalience 3y ago
I don't know about the substance enough to comment, but did want to remark that I saw no sarcasm in the post you replied to.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Furthermore, Americans tend to pay less tax. This isn't actually true. The total US tax burden is very similar to that of other modern nations.
tambourine_man 3y ago
This is an often repeated mantra: “sure you'll lose some rights, but it will be way easier to find higher paying jobs in a more dynamic market”. I've lived in two countries that went through this transition in labor laws to follow the neoliberal playbook. Guess what happened. See also “less regulation will mean more agile and competitive market which will auto regulate itself”, etc.
- Firaxus 3y ago
  Can you elaborate further on the points of what happened, the countries themselves, and the final quote?
  - tambourine_man 3y ago
    Retirement age increase, easier/cheaper to fire employees, relaxed definitions of extra-time, the usual. We ended up with a recession and less rights. Don’t want to reveal the countries, but it’s a common tale.
    - _zoltan_ 3y ago
      Why don't you want to name two countries on earth? Either people can fact check you or you're just full of it. Also don't think you are special to live in two countries. This will not dox you.
- FredPret 3y ago
  Depends on which regulations you remove. It's against the law to steal money. That's a regulation we need to keep. It's also against the law to build a house if the existing homeowners vote that you can't. That's a regulation that makes the market less efficient, though I can see the reasoning behind it.
  - halostatue 3y ago
    Did you know that the most common sort of theft in the US and Canada is wage theft? It doesn’t happen nearly as often in countries with stronger labour laws. It doesn’t get prosecuted nearly as much as other types of theft. https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...
dkarl 3y ago
Do you really mean that threatening to claw back severance from critics of the company is a significant part of what makes the U.S. job market work?
- code_runner 3y ago
  no, the comment you're replying was not being so narrow
mschuster91 3y ago
> Being easier to fire makes American employees easier to hire, which is at least in part responsible for much higher pay in the USA compared to employee havens such as Europe. Only if you're a highly sought after tech person and thus have actual leverage. Farm workers, hospitality employees, construction workers - they're all exploited just the same.
angarg12 3y ago
I moved from the UK to the US recently and I'm not sure it's worth my while. Sure, I make more than 2x the salary, but the cost of living of a bit tech hub chips away most of it. Specially housing, which has increased dramatically since Covid. Even with my big fat tech salary, getting in the properly ladder seems to be years away. Pay less taxes? sure, but then you have to pay for everything and then some, and everything is incredibly expensive. And we don't even have children yet. I can't imagine being able to afford childcare even with my current income. I agree that I choose the worst time to move over. In the last year we experienced drop in stock prices combined with soaring inflation, which means that both my income went down, and my expenses went up. Also it's not like I can change employers and get a better deal. Even if the job market wasn't depressed, my visa (L1) doesn't allow me to change employers. Also the latest visa bulletin pushed the current date of my visa category back a couple of years, so Green Card seems like a somewhat distant dream. All in, I'm not sure my quality of life in this country is better (and the UK itself is not doing great lately).
- FredPret 3y ago
  I'm an immigrant too. It took me many years to break even on my emigration. You only get to the part where it's all worth it once you've settled into the new country, gotten a few jobs/promotions/started a business, bought a house, made lots of friends, learnt the new culture (not such a huge shock for UK->US), etc. This takes years and sometimes a whole generation!
- nightski 3y ago
  The key is to not live in a tech hub or hcol area. You can make a great salary in the 200-300k range in lower cost of living areas and basically live like royalty.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    Between the tech industry particularly leaning well towards remote work and the US being predominantly rural countryside geographically, more people should consider not living in the big cities where housing and costs of living are exponentially higher.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Beldin 3y ago
> Being easier to fire makes American employees easier to hire, No, there's nothing easier about hiring US employees. It only makes it easier to fire them. This reduces the risk of bad hires for the employers, by allowing them to be easily fired. That encourages employers to be less risk-averse in hiring, but, once again, it does not facilitate the hiring process.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Whether Americans pay less in tax is debatable once all taxation is included. Whether Americans pay far more for health insurance, and whether they're far more likely to be bankrupted by a health crisis, has a very straightforward answer: "yes." Privatised social services - most obviously health, but also some utilities, transport systems, rented housing, and so on - are de facto corporate taxes. Americans are subjected to constant and insistent "private good, government bad" propaganda from birth, so it's not always easy to get this point across. Even so. If you're being forced to pay for essential services, and those services are unaffordable and/or may bankrupt you, you would - unquestionably - find that public ownership would be significantly less precarious and more affordable.
DontchaKnowit 3y ago
Even further more, let us not forget many many employeers are single person business owners as well. So ease of firing is beneficial to the employer, who is also an american citizen with rights. For example, the right not to keep a dickhead on the payroll just cause the law says they have to

oldandboring 3y ago

This is a refreshing comment to read. HN and Reddit discussions about employment in the US is often just a dumpster fire of "America bad", half-baked theories and observations from the perspective of the employee, where US workers have no rights and would be rioting in the streets if we hadn't been brainwashed by corporate media. Here on earth, what you wrote is much closer to the truth. The American economy is awash with opportunities to work for small businesses, with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
> with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny What about the European system prevents that for the employee?
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  That we don't have hire and fire, meaning when you take a new job it comes with all kinds of regulations for the company - making them not wanting to change people so often. Otherwise we surely can do this in europe as well, just with a little bit more friction.
  - SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
    So it in theory adds more opportunities for the worker, assuming they are in high demand. Of course, if a European leaves their company they don't lose their health coverage.
    - FredPret 3y ago
      It also creates demand even for low-skilled work, since there are more low-margin / seasonal businesses that are feasible under the easy-come-easy-go system.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >What about the European system prevents that for the employee? From personal experience: 1. Less employment opportunities due to no VC funding, and risk averse mentality of entrepreneurs meaning next to no big EU SW product companies. That's why the best paying jobs in EU tech scene are mostly US companies, which also tend to be clustered in only a few cities in the EU, where housing is now a major issue. 2. Employment and tax laws. 100% cross-country employment across the EU is still not a thing, as every government wants taxes be paid in their country, so they have the laws and bureaucracy in place to make sure jobs and tax revenue don't leave their country, so living in a country while being employed in another is incredibly rare as an employee and not a B-2-B contractor. 3. The big one: Language barriers and bureaucracy differing from country to country means huge friction and risk when moving to a country you're not familiar with, along with the added overhead of learning a new language on top of having a full time job plus the challenge of building new social circles with a different language and culture. I've seen many people leave a country due to the culture shock, language barrier and isolation that lead to, despite them being friendly people and productive workers. This might even be a fun challenge to deal with when you're young and single, but when you have a spouse and maybe even a child, things get even more complicated fast when it comes to immigration, finding a house or a job, especially if your spouse doesn't work in tech or any other career where English is normalized at work, or even needs their credentials translated and locally equivalated by the authorities to be eligible for employment. I've met many expat couples where one works in tech and their non-tech spouse has been unemployed for months/years due to their education, skills and experience not being recognized in the new country. Some EU countries really love bureaucracy, credentials, and don't tolerate you not speaking the local language. A friend of mine got laid off as part of his company going bankrupt with his last two wages going unpaid. The bureaucracy, letter bombardment and appointments in dealing with the authorities to try to recoup those two months wages, all having to be done in German, a foreign language to him(and me), makes the experience completely exhausting and I can feel he just wants to give up on those unpaid wages. Imagine someone from Ohio having to learn a new language when moving to California and then another language when moving to New York. Not having to deal with bureaucracy in a foreign language for every state is a huge asset for the US and a weakness of the EU labor mobility. The fix could be easy, mandate English as a second language for bureaucracy in every EU country, but I can name a few countries (not the Northern ones) where I know they'd rather see the world burn than adopt English. It's one of the reason why the UK and Ireland are the top destinations for EU migration, at least that was the case for UK before Brexit. 4. Racism, xenofobia, discrimination and glass ceilings from the locals, when you come from the "wrong" country, have a "wrong" sounding name or the "wrong" skin color.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hutzlibu 3y ago
"The American economy is awash with opportunities to work for small businesses, with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny. " If they all are all happy and free to chart their own destiny - why are those contract things then pretty much standard in the US (as it seems to me)? And maybe things are not perfect on either side of the atlantic? I would be fine with less regulations and hire and fire here in europe btw - but I would be not OK, having to sign such contracts. But I don't see, why we can't have both. Meaning employee respecting contracts - but not mandated from above.
- winstonprivacy 3y ago
  > why are those contract things then pretty much standard in the US (as it seems to me)? They aren't standard by any means.
  - halostatue 3y ago
    Severance NDAs and noncompetes have been increasingly used against minimum wage workers. Imagine not being able to get a job at Quiznos because you worked at Jimmy John's, which at one point had such a noncompete. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement-idUSKBN13W2JA https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement-idU...) When things that we are used to (but unhappy with) because our jobs involve a lot of proprietary technological secrets trickle down to sandwich shop minimum wage workers…it’s not worth saying that they’re not standard. There’s a reason that multiple state legislatures are working to ban noncompetes entirely, and it’s not because they’re uncommon. https://archive.is/kLOFV https://archive.is/kLOFV
code_runner 3y ago
its always pretty shocking to me how much things turn into this weird us v them mentality when its really just two different systems with plenty of pros and cons. Every system could be improved and if you prefer one the other isn't by default inherently evil. People within both systems can suck.
- FredPret 3y ago
  This is so true. I didn't mean to dunk on the European system - just wanted to point out that the US system is not without significant advantages. I'm from Africa and both places are like heaven on earth in comparison.
grecy 3y ago
> with employees free to move around and chart their own destiny. I've always found it much easier to "chart my own destiny" when my healthcare is guaranteed, forever, for free, whether I have a job or not.

playing_colours 3y ago

In Germany we have probation period of 6 months that helps both sides to decide if they want to continue employment. Can you please explain the causation between easiness of firing / hiring and high salaries?

FredPret 3y ago
Well probation isn't really what I was talking about. That's sort of a pre-employment notice period. I'm talking about a post-employment notice period. How much notice does the employee get between getting fired and then no longer receiving paycheques? Basically, how much severance does the company have to pay? Add to this any red tape involved in firing someone. Now look at it from the point of view of the company. If I, the business owner, know that I have to comply with a raft of regulations and pay several months' severance to fire someone, I'll be very reluctant to hire them in the first place. I'll jump through hoops, work late nights, outsource the job, do anything I can to avoid hiring someone. On the other hand, if I'm in an at-will state in the US, you can fire someone for no reason with zero notice. Seems crazy right? But it means I won't even think twice about hiring someone either. Could they maybe help on a project? Sure, hire them! Frequently one thing leads to another and employees stay on for a long time anyway. Now in the second case the same number of companies with the same capital available will end up hiring lots more people due to the lower friction. Make it easy to get out of a situation, and more people will want to get into that situation.
hirako2000 3y ago
What I understood is that it's pretty easy to fire someone in the US without cause. Pretty impossible in most countries in Europe.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  Correct, although there is a legal conundrum. If you fire someone without cause, they can claim that you actually did have a cause, and it's one of the illegal causes. So, it's safer to compile evidence and fire someone for any legal cause -- of which "did not meet company needs" is generally safest. Even safer is offering them a departure settlement of money and/or insurance coverage, in exchange for which they won't sue you.

jraby3 3y ago

I’m not convinced Americans pay less in taxes. When you include state taxes, social security from the employee and employer, then it starts to look like much less of a difference. When you include health insurance and college education, Americans get much less value. I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring.

jylam 3y ago
> "I do agree with the first half of your comment. American labor laws make it easier to fire which allows employers to take more risk in hiring. " less risk, you used the wrong word. If they can fire easily, they take less risk by hiring. That's more risk for the employee though, you miss the fact that most of the people is not HN, and they don't get paid 6 or 7 figures and don't find a job in days if they really need to.
- profile53 3y ago
  I think they take less risk in each hiring decision and because of that, can take on more risky / less proven candidates, ergo more risk acceptance in the hiring practices.
  - 6D794163636F756 3y ago
    To rephrase, you're saying that US companies are able to more quickly divest from failed ideas so they are more willing to take on a venture that's not likely to succeed (risky) because failure will not hurt them as much (less risky). This is a scoping issue, the action contains the risk because the system has mitigated it.
- kogus 3y ago
  You are right - but because each hire is less risky, a US company can afford to take the risk of hiring for an "experimental" role that may not work out. I think this additional risk is what they were referring to.
3y ago

yCombLinks 3y ago

We pay less tax, but pay for health insurance rather than having taxes pay for healthcare.

halostatue 3y ago
It’s often not even true that Americans pay a lower tax amount or rate, unless you’re at the richest ends of the scale. (~25 years ago, my wife and I both made about $50–55k; she ended up paying a lower total amount of tax in Canada than I did in the US, and I had the shitty American healthcare system with $15 copays. Needless to say, I emigrated.) There are regressive taxes (e.g., sales taxes / VAT) which are certainly lower in America than most of the rest of the world, and some American states deliberately starve their government of income so that they cannot be obligated to provide basic services and instead shift things to user fees.
- FredPret 3y ago
  Canada is more in line with US for taxes. In Europe, even middle class people pay 40-50% tax.

johneth 3y ago

I think there's a middle ground between 'at-will employment capitalist hellscape' America and 'unable to be fired for months socialist hellscape' Europe.

unmole 3y ago
What does labour regulation have to to do with socialism?
- johneth 3y ago
  I'm being hyperbolic, using the American bastardisation of the word 'socialism'. I'd put myself on the Europe-side of employment law/regulation ideals.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
There are no socialist countries in Europe. Every country in Europe is capitalist.
FredPret 3y ago
It's probably helpful to point out neither is in any way close to being a hellscape, and the people in both places have done a wonderful job building up a civilization that suits them.
tambourine_man 3y ago
Europe is much more of a middle ground than the opposite end of the spectrum.
switch007 3y ago
> 'unable to be fired for months socialist hellscape' Europe A small handful of countries in Europe*
nmfisher 3y ago
Generally I've always found the underlying principle behind the Australian system[0] to be a reasonable middle ground. Those making less than a certain amount can only be terminated: a) immediately for cause (theft/fraud/etc) b) with notice for poor performance c) with notice and a legislated payout for redundancy where the job is no longer required. Those earning above a certain amount need to negotiate any/all of these into their contract. Admittedly it does occasionally result in employees being reinstated whose sacking was (IMO) completely justified. I don't like those specific instances, but I figure it's the price you have to pay for a system that is tilted slightly in favour of employees. [0] The actual laws are rubbish though, they're intentionally obtuse/vague owing to industrial relations being a political minefield and no government wanting to touch it for fear of voter pushback.

esquivalience 3y ago

I don't know about the substance enough to comment, but did want to remark that I saw no sarcasm in the post you replied to.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Furthermore, Americans tend to pay less tax. This isn't actually true. The total US tax burden is very similar to that of other modern nations.

tambourine_man 3y ago

This is an often repeated mantra: “sure you'll lose some rights, but it will be way easier to find higher paying jobs in a more dynamic market”. I've lived in two countries that went through this transition in labor laws to follow the neoliberal playbook. Guess what happened. See also “less regulation will mean more agile and competitive market which will auto regulate itself”, etc.

Firaxus 3y ago
Can you elaborate further on the points of what happened, the countries themselves, and the final quote?
- tambourine_man 3y ago
  Retirement age increase, easier/cheaper to fire employees, relaxed definitions of extra-time, the usual. We ended up with a recession and less rights. Don’t want to reveal the countries, but it’s a common tale.
  - _zoltan_ 3y ago
    Why don't you want to name two countries on earth? Either people can fact check you or you're just full of it. Also don't think you are special to live in two countries. This will not dox you.
FredPret 3y ago
Depends on which regulations you remove. It's against the law to steal money. That's a regulation we need to keep. It's also against the law to build a house if the existing homeowners vote that you can't. That's a regulation that makes the market less efficient, though I can see the reasoning behind it.
- halostatue 3y ago
  Did you know that the most common sort of theft in the US and Canada is wage theft? It doesn’t happen nearly as often in countries with stronger labour laws. It doesn’t get prosecuted nearly as much as other types of theft. https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-fo...

dkarl 3y ago

Do you really mean that threatening to claw back severance from critics of the company is a significant part of what makes the U.S. job market work?

code_runner 3y ago
no, the comment you're replying was not being so narrow

mschuster91 3y ago

> Being easier to fire makes American employees easier to hire, which is at least in part responsible for much higher pay in the USA compared to employee havens such as Europe. Only if you're a highly sought after tech person and thus have actual leverage. Farm workers, hospitality employees, construction workers - they're all exploited just the same.

angarg12 3y ago

I moved from the UK to the US recently and I'm not sure it's worth my while. Sure, I make more than 2x the salary, but the cost of living of a bit tech hub chips away most of it. Specially housing, which has increased dramatically since Covid. Even with my big fat tech salary, getting in the properly ladder seems to be years away. Pay less taxes? sure, but then you have to pay for everything and then some, and everything is incredibly expensive. And we don't even have children yet. I can't imagine being able to afford childcare even with my current income. I agree that I choose the worst time to move over. In the last year we experienced drop in stock prices combined with soaring inflation, which means that both my income went down, and my expenses went up. Also it's not like I can change employers and get a better deal. Even if the job market wasn't depressed, my visa (L1) doesn't allow me to change employers. Also the latest visa bulletin pushed the current date of my visa category back a couple of years, so Green Card seems like a somewhat distant dream. All in, I'm not sure my quality of life in this country is better (and the UK itself is not doing great lately).

FredPret 3y ago
I'm an immigrant too. It took me many years to break even on my emigration. You only get to the part where it's all worth it once you've settled into the new country, gotten a few jobs/promotions/started a business, bought a house, made lots of friends, learnt the new culture (not such a huge shock for UK->US), etc. This takes years and sometimes a whole generation!
nightski 3y ago
The key is to not live in a tech hub or hcol area. You can make a great salary in the 200-300k range in lower cost of living areas and basically live like royalty.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Between the tech industry particularly leaning well towards remote work and the US being predominantly rural countryside geographically, more people should consider not living in the big cities where housing and costs of living are exponentially higher.

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Beldin 3y ago

> Being easier to fire makes American employees easier to hire, No, there's nothing easier about hiring US employees. It only makes it easier to fire them. This reduces the risk of bad hires for the employers, by allowing them to be easily fired. That encourages employers to be less risk-averse in hiring, but, once again, it does not facilitate the hiring process.

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago

Whether Americans pay less in tax is debatable once all taxation is included. Whether Americans pay far more for health insurance, and whether they're far more likely to be bankrupted by a health crisis, has a very straightforward answer: "yes." Privatised social services - most obviously health, but also some utilities, transport systems, rented housing, and so on - are de facto corporate taxes. Americans are subjected to constant and insistent "private good, government bad" propaganda from birth, so it's not always easy to get this point across. Even so. If you're being forced to pay for essential services, and those services are unaffordable and/or may bankrupt you, you would - unquestionably - find that public ownership would be significantly less precarious and more affordable.

DontchaKnowit 3y ago

Even further more, let us not forget many many employeers are single person business owners as well. So ease of firing is beneficial to the employer, who is also an american citizen with rights. For example, the right not to keep a dickhead on the payroll just cause the law says they have to