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Comment by rplnt | Hacker News Reader

Yep, I meant notice. Thanks.

Was just wondering as this might screw up with someone if they are short on money, have mortgage, etc.

In EU, there is some minimum notice time (I think two weeks?). In practice (from what I've seen) it's usually two to three months, but layoffs would be done immediately by agreement (basically pay for that period anyway). Minimum severance is one-month-pay (average, so bonuses included) for each year worked, limited to three.

So in real life, one would get 5-6 months pay when being laid off. Depending on the situation (reason for the lay off), one might not be able to spend their vacation and that would have to be paid off as well. On top of that you might apply for unemployment benefit (which you paid for, so I'm not sure how relevant it is).

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In the US you have no such guarantee, it's completely at the pleasure of your employer.

I could walk into work this morning, get laid off, and escorted out of the building without notice. That's it, done, no more salary. To make it even worse, you also lose the subsidized health insurance. My employer pays about 60% of the cost for my family, so my monthly premiums would jump from $800 to nearly $2000 a month at the same time my income drops to near zero.

Sure there's unemployment payments, but they're usually only a fraction of your previous salary, and are often capped to a maximum by your individual state.

Welcome to capitalism ;)

Conversely you could also leave at a moment's notice for a better opportunity.

Well, legally that's true, but in practice, this makes you "not a team player", or something like that, and you won't be able to use the company as a reference ever.

You have to give at least two weeks warning to the employer if you want to leave, but if they want to fire you, they just show you the door without warning. Note that the employer may then just fire you anyways, so your courteous notice results in two weeks without pay. For some reason, this is considered fine, even in industries where it's a laborer's market.

While there are certainly legal differences across countries, I think the stigma applies universally. It's weird, especially considering many workplaces seem to want to project an image of cohesiveness and team spirit and what not, but when it comes to practicalities all of that goes out the window in favor of the bottom line. (I'm not saying the bottom line is unimportant, just that the warm fuzzy feeling you're trying to instill is worth nothing when the man comes around. The cake, as it were, is a lie.)

There are some, limited legal protections in the US, notably the WARN act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...

Still even provisions like that are inconsistently applied. I worked at an internal development studio of a large video game publisher that closed, resulting in the layoff of all ~90 employees. The studio had two offices: one in Los Angeles, California and another, smaller office in Austin, Texas. The employees at the LA office were covered under the WARN act and thus paid/insured through the end of the year (2 months) and received company severance on top of that. Those of us at the smaller Austin office were not covered under the WARN act as we had less than 50 employees at that location. Instead we received a check for our last two week pay period and the aforementioned severance package.

I'm not sure this applies over all of the EU – certainly in the UK it's not true. (I learned this the hard way. Note to anyone working in the UK: in practice there's a minimum probationary period of two full years, regardless of what your contract says.)

Anyway I'm not sure this scenario is any better than the US scenario of little to no employee protection. Sure, it means you're not flat and your back from day one, but the cost firing anyone is substantial, making it very difficult particularly for small business to hire simply because the risk is too great. I'd be keen to learn if there are other ways to reduce that risk than simply making it easier to fire people indiscriminately.

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