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Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different j
by apexalpha 2y ago
Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else.
Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. People are moved to different jobs, helped with training etc...
Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.
- wiseowise 2y ago> Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. As someone from Europe, I’ve never experienced US salaries. Go figure.
- apwell23 2y agoweird
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- perching_aix 2y agoYou probably never experienced their working hours either.
- bigfatkitten 2y agoAs someone who has worked for a string of US companies, 38 hours for me is a busy week.
- int_19h 2y agoFWIW in my 15 years of experience working in big tech in US, I never had a job in which there was an expectation of doing more than 40 hours, working weekends etc. Such things definitely exist, but they are far less common than is often implied here on HN and elsewhere. I think this is largely because people who don't work long hours are much less likely to wax poetic about it, just because, well, it's not at all unusual or interesting.
- WhrRTheBaboons 2y agowhat about US costs of living?
- wiseowise 2y agoAms is same or even worse than some US areas when it comes to costs of living.
- marcinzm 2y agoMany European cities aren't exactly low cost of living, and those that are have even lower salaries. In the end someone who was working at Google in the Bay Area for 15-20 years can retire if they didn't have life style creep (which is different than cost of living). Not the case in Europe.
- Sonnigeszeug 2y ago'Someone who worked at one of the best paying companies in the world can retire after 15-20 years'. This has nothing to do with Europe. This is particular a tech thing
- blacklion 2y agoWhat about European taxes? I', paying 48% + there is 21% VAT on almost everything. Plus taxes for water (taxes, not pay-per-used-m3, and this payment is here too), energy (atop of market energy prices), roads, gasoline, etc.
- icameron 2y ago
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hieKVj2ECC 2y agoI have seen this in EU too
- eloisant 2y agoIn which country?
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoAustria
- asadalt 2y agothat’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.
- viccis 2y agoPretty sure they wouldn't want someone like you to do so either.
- asadalt 2y agothey are doing great!
- perching_aix 2y agoThanks.
- BlobberSnobber 2y agoAlways someone with a horrible opinion to give in this hellsite
- asadalt 2y agoi have had to avoid hiring excellent candidate(s) from EU, just because they would become unflushable if it comes to that.
- noisy_boy 2y ago> just because they would become unflushable if it comes to that Your choice of verb tells a lot about what you think of your employees.
- asadalt 2y agosure i am being dramatic but my point stands. if my company can’t be fluid and can’t react fast to market due to bs unions and backward laws of some land, that place is what i avoid.
- michalstanko 2y agoIt really depends on the people you work for, it's not like Europe is some kind of paradise in this matter. I was working as a contractor for a company in Germany, after a few years working together, they cut me off from one day to the next (the new manager decided to start saving money), even though my contract included a clause about a one-month notice period. They didn’t even bother to pay the invoice for the work I had already done that month (it was the 23rd of the month, so we’re talking about a few thousand euros). And since I wasn't living in Germany, extracting that money from them was almost impossible. Yes, it may be different for full-time non-contract jobs, but once you're on a contract, nobody cares.
- apexalpha 2y agoYeah but that's kinda the point of being a contractor, no? Here in the Netherlands contractors are also 'at will employed' as the Americans say. But they pay you more so...
- aembleton 2y agoOP said that they did this for contractors too!
- lnsru 2y agoSounds like a case every lawyer in Germany would like to take. 500€ for first letter to send to the manager reminding the contract conditions. It is enough for most companies not to go further with shady activities. As a contractor one should know how to deal with the clients.
- hectormalot 2y agoI don’t think that’s shady? When I was hiring contractors it was always project based with mutual understanding things could end quickly if the project or collaboration didn’t work out. Yes, they get paid 1.5-2x, and that also prices in that it’s not always 100% utilization. Only once had a contractor oppose that, but that was in the context of (severe) underperformance.
- perching_aix 2y ago* Experience in Central- and Eastern Europe (CEE) may differ. Well, getting escorted out definitely doesn't happen here either at least.
- lproven 2y ago> Well, getting escorted out definitely doesn't happen here either at least. It 100% does. It happened to me in Brno, Czechia, and this February I interviewed someone to whom the same thing happened and who was attempting to sue for unfair dismissal.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoThat's not universal though. My dad's company was bought up by a foreign investor, shrunk over multiple reorganizations from its peak of ~500 people in the 70's or 80's down to a skeleton crew of ~50. They weren't fired, they were told the company was going bankrupt and needed to be emptied out. People who worked there for 40+ years were basically given a few months' pay if that and a "good luck". There's a formula for severance pay; years worked * month's wage, this would give people a lot of leeway to find a new job or just sit out until their retirement, but of course that's very expensive so they weaseled their way out of it through various constructions. Dozens of people fired a few years before retirement, most never found another job again. And the boss kept the company, which is now a shell company / sales / license holder, which the parent company was always after of course because production is cheaper to do in e.g. Poland.
- watwut 2y ago> People who worked there for 40+ years were basically given a few months' pay Those few months pay thing is the key difference. That is legally mandated.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoYou also get a few months pay in the US unless the company is truly broke.
- immibis 2y agoIncorrect. It's at-will employment.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago"At-will employment" is a meme here. In reality, the company gives you a few months of pay and you sign a document saying you won't sue them for firing you during a layoff. If you get fired for fraud or for being incompetent, for example, it's often different.
- 2y ago
- 331c8c71 2y ago> Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions. Europe is vastly diverse and your experience is not representative of all Europe.
- Aeolun 2y agoIt sounds representative of every part of Europe I’ve experienced.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoYou probably never worked in Austria.
- selfmodruntime 2y agoYou have no idea about Switzerland or Northern Europe. In Denmark and Iceland, layoffs are swift.
- AstralStorm 2y agoThat's true. But contracts here usually have a set termination time, with a minimum notice time typically required by law, dependent on how long you've been hired at the company. Tends to be one month for below a year, three months beyond a year. As in after a termination there's a period during which you're still supposed to work and collect the salary. Exceptions are B2B contracts (but they still often have one of those) and some piece work contracts. Of course a particular bastard of a company can still immediately cut you off everything but the salary including the doors.
- Scandiravian 2y agoHaving experienced layoffs in both US and EU companies, the difference is massive. In my experience there is very little respect for "the human" being laid off in US companies People literally would just disappear day to day. I've had several instances where I only found out a colleague had been fired because I tried to write them on Slack only to find that their account had been deactivated Personally I felt constantly worried working in such an environment and I don't want to work for another US company again if I can help it There are of course bad cases in the EU, but in my experience it's way less common than in the US
- apwell23 2y ago> In my experience there is very little respect for "the human" being laid off in US companies its much easier to find another job in US because of this though.
- oblio 2y agoIs it, really? Aren't US tech interview notoriously difficult? Many rounds of interviews, background checks, etc.? Most purely European companies don't do that. Actually, unfortunately, some of them do, because of American influence. But for sure they didn't use to.
- icemelt8 2y agoWhat he meant is that the whole capitalist culture, less regulations, creates a more thriving economy which creates more jobs and hence more options to go to.
- hnlmorg 2y agoI've heard this type of comment a lot but in my experience there isn't any shortage of tech companies in the EU. What EU regulations hamper isn't job creation, it's employee and customer exploitation. The distinction between "job creation" and "employee exploitation" is important. What the former means in practice is that there is a massive contractor market in the UK and EU. So if companies need temporary staff, they'll hire a contractor. If they need permanent staff then they'll hire an employee. And contractors in the UK & EU are paid significantly more than their employee peers. In fact their pay is much more equivalent to US employees. So companies will make constant tradeoffs between more expensive labor for short-lived projects vs cheaper staff and knowledge retention but stricter employment laws. It's a fair trade most of the time. So a more accurate way of comparing US vs EU businesses in terms of employees would be US employees vs EU contractors. Things then begin to look a lot more equivalent.
- apwell23 2y ago[flagged]
- perching_aix 2y ago"Coping about being a europoor" definitely sounds like a fair assessment that isn't politically motivated at all, and is sure to improve the quality of discussion. /s
- apwell23 2y ago[flagged]
- perching_aix 2y ago> is quality discussion for you? If it was, why would I be evaluating whether you're improving it or not? Surely a discussion only needs improvement if it has room for it, right? > edit: you are another coper europoor. Strong words from someone who recurringly goes into US vs. EU discussions just to post inflammatory garbage. [0] [1] [2] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43417884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43417884 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411189 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43374322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43374322
- lproven 2y ago> Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else. Yeah, no. Also European, and have been marched out without notice, cut off that day with no chance to say goodbye, etc.
- ithkuil 2y agoIt would be interesting to know. 1. Which countries are we talking about? Europe is not homogeneous 2. Which type of business? Are workers unionized?
- lproven 2y agoI have experienced this while working as a journalist in Britain and while working as a technical writer in the Czech Republic.
- damnitbuilds 2y agoI worked a at large European company. They announced there would be layoffs. But not who, just the date. On that date, they came round during the day, tapping people on the shoulder, who walked out of the room and were never seen in the office again. Grown men were crying, who weren't even let go. I never felt good about that company ever again.
- AlexeyBelov 2y agoWhat company was that?
- pjmlp 2y agoThat is mostly in Central and Nothern Europe, unfortunely in the south even with unions, things not always go as they should be.
- shadowgovt 2y agoI worked at a company with a US division and a German division. It was stark, the difference in process between the two countries. Leadership was openly complaining about how they couldn't close out shuttering the company because it was going to take six months to handle legal compliance in Germany. This was during an all-hands, and one delightfully brave soul who knew it didn't matter much what he said since we were all exiting anyway commented in the public channel "Because of those laws, the American employees also get a six-month heads up instead of a locked door when they drive in in the morning, so today, we're all very grateful to Germany and our German peers."
- o_m 2y agoIt makes sense in the US where they have terms like "going postal" and easy access to guns
- constantcrying 2y agoThe idea of being able to keep a laptop sounds absurd to me. Of course many European countries have labor laws which make it near impossible to fire someone on the spot. >Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay. Presumably you are also still employed, just not given any tasks. I do not think that here in Germany there is any way to immediately fire someone, just because he was working on something critical. Many companies refuse to do layoffs entirely. Which often means that they have difficulties responding to changes in the environment or need to heavily rely on contractors.
- carstenhag 2y agoRe: Germany - for sure there is. Aufhebungsvertrag if you as employee agree. Kündigung mit sofortiger Freistellung if you don't agree.
- constantcrying 2y ago>Aufhebungsvertrag That is something both sides have to agree on. So it can not be considered "firing". >Freistellung You are still employed, just have no tasks assigned to you. Completely different scenario for the employee, who now can look for a new job, while still being paid as if he were employed. Arguably it is even better than being let go, but having to continue working. Definitely anything but a "firing on the spot".