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Comment by somedude895 | Hacker News Reader

It's okay to feel bad for people who lose their jobs. But business cycles are important for a healthy economy. Unsustainable ventures need to die or be pruned at some point if you want to generate lasting prosperity. Whether this specific instance actually serves to create a more productive and more dynamic company remains to be seen, and it sucks for the people affected, but if they're skilled and useful – as every person should always strive to be – they'll be fine.

It sounds heartless, but it's the reality.

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"if they're skilled and useful – as every person should always strive to be"

Side note, but the fact that people will "be fine" based on their level of economic usefulness - and, indirectly, linking their value as a human to their ability to be productive - is what keeps me up at night thinking about what happens when automation outclasses all of us

As a programmer for a few decades automation has been a big part of my life. When you automate something, there’s more to do.

If we reach some zen state where truly all has been automated then we’ll have UBI (or some dystopian hellscape) so I don’t worry about it.

I’ve always struggled with programmers who feared automation and wrote shitty, complicated, buggy code happy that they had “job security.”

I go to sleep wishing for the day when I can automate everything away.

Also, there’s tons of one person businesses you can run if you automate workflows.

It's not the next few years, but half-century out that I'm worried about. I'll personally be retired by that point, sure, but that doesn't stop me from being deeply worried by society at large. Even good programmers are going to have a hard time finding jobs.

You're also missing that programming isn't the only sector that's going to be upended by automation. Basically every job market is going to be affected by the end of the century.

>If we reach some zen state where truly all has been automated then we’ll have UBI (or some dystopian hellscape)

In the States at least, the resistance to any form of socialism is so strong that I have no faith UBI has a snowball's chance in hell.

>there’s tons of one person businesses you can run if you automate workflows.

and when literally everyone can do it, competition will be brutal. When the stakes are "make it or end up homeless", and everyone is desperately trying to run their own business because corporations don't need to hire anymore, we're in deep trouble

We have about a century of empirical data that says that automation does not cause widespread unemployment. Automating horses took away all the horse-care jobs and business, but they found other things to do. Computers automated computers (armies of mostly women who chugged out calculations), and they all found new jobs. Nobody has a secretary any more. All those people responsible for inter-departmental mail are gone, because nobody sends memos any more. Nobody has live-in servants any more, partly thanks to washing machines, dishwashers, and microwaves.

Actually, in some sense, more people have servants, just that they are part-time: cleaning services, people who keep track of your schedule (executive assistants, but for normal people, can't remember the word).

When Microsoft Word automated away secretaries, it also raised the level of quality to be what was formerly available only at professional printers, so people spend the same amount of time, but now the expectation of quality of output is higher.

There can't really be widespread unemployment due to automation, because then labor costs would decrease and handmade goods would become more affordable, so people would start doing that.

Actually studies are that people who specialized in Eg. Looming fabrics never found equivalent jobs. They literally lost their livelihoods and never regained that quality of life. I would be supremely worried if a permanent underclass of people whose specialties are automated away and there are no equivalent quality jobs for them.

Good point, but as a counterbalancing force, those people still benefit from the economy-wide productivity increase in the long run. An entry-level unskilled worker has a much higher standard of living today than a skilled tradesman of the 19th century.

> a permanent underclass of people whose specialties are automated away and there are no equivalent quality jobs for them.

Isn't this pretty much a description of the US manufacturing sector over the last 40 years?

When it comes to approaching the asymptote of the singularity (or just general exponential increase in tech advancements across the board, if you don't buy the general singularity theory), the societal impact of the car replacing horses means little to me in terms of predicting the future.

UBI is orthogonal to socialism. It could exist under socialism, but you could also just take the existing state of the USA, widely considered capitalist, and modify it by setting the Social Security benefits age to 0. I've actually seen socialists against the UBI often enough; it implies the existence of money and markets

We won't automatically have UBI, we'll have to fight for every part of it, just like historical working class movements.

> I go to sleep wishing for the day when I can automate everything away.

I've been sitting here trying to suss out why something about saying this outside the context of a job interview feels so cringe to me. Best I can figure is that it's two things. 1.) Having that thought as a central part of your inner life implies that you have a very limited social life. 2.) The lack of worry about your own well being - "we'll have UBI or a dystopian hellscape, oh well" - feels almost ... subish in a sadomasochistic sort of way. Like you're bottoming for the economy (not that there's an issue with bottoming, lol).

If you owned your own business it wouldn't strike me this way, but if you're just a programmer at a company you don't actually get to work less by automating things, you just get to work on different stuff. But if you automated everything you'd just be tossed aside and reap no benefits. Wishing that on yourself is just.... so strangely pathetic. I know you didn't mean to sound pathetic. You probably consider it cool or heroic (in a nerdy sense) to talk about how much you want to automate everything.

Sorry to derail like this. I'm just fascinated by my revulsion and trying to untangle it.

I don’t literally think of this every night. I was exaggerating and should have been more clear about this statement not being literal.

I’ve never actually ended my day wishing for automating everything. But it is an ideal that I would like.

I wouldn’t be tossed aside from automating my own business as I own it and no one could toss me aside. There’s not a requirement that I have an employer.

So I don’t think automating all my work away means I won’t have a purpose any longer. I think it will lead to more interesting and meaningful work.

I could be wrong but I’ve automated hundreds, maybe thousands of processes over the years for various companies and it’s always led to me working on more interesting stuff.

I don’t think it’s cool or heroic, whatever that means, just part of fun problems that I get to solve.

My lack of worry is based on not having any control over the situation so instead focusing on other things. It’s just a reductive analysis that lets me think I don’t have to worry about it.

In the extremely small chance that it is possible to automate everything so that there’s no more work, I don’t have control over it. In hellscape mode, that sucks and is not fun. In UBI mode that’s great. Either way, it’s not affecting my decisions today. I certainly don’t wish for the negative outcome or relish it’s potential.

I think your revulsion may be due to misunderstanding some of my motivations.

That's not what the other poster meant, stop it.

We’re the richest country in the world and yet that lasting prosperity only seems to exist for a few. Maybe we’re going about this wrong. Maybe being heartless and coldly efficient doesn’t create lasting prosperity.

"if they're skilled and useful – as every person should always strive to be – they'll be fine"

And if they're not?

Welfare and food stamps.

Many of them have been paid a high enough multiple of the median household income in the state (which is less than 80k) for long enough - they’ll be fine.

They can always move back in with their parents, or worst case get a plot of land and start subsistence farming.

And if they are not, they should have been fired a long time ago.

Then they only have themselves to blame.

So in your world, if someone doesn't have a useful skill, they deserve to be destitute?

Not making 500k in a job you're incompetent at != being destitute.

But in here, the company has deep debt only because of overpriced leveraged buyout. And the layoff have popcorn qualities because they are rage driven. The debt twitter had originally was much smaller. The scale of layoff that had to happen would be much smaller. It is also fair to guess they would be deal with more tact and more fairness then done now (no I dont believe Musk team is able to actually tell bad and good performers apart).

Twitter has some profits last year first time. I am not saying it was perfect company. But the deep deep financial trouble it is in now is because of leveraged buyout motivated by politics (stick it to ennemies) and ego.

In this case, though, we aren't talking about the business cycle, are we?

Why not? Twitter hired a TON in the last 3 years and their income didn’t keep up. That’s business that could need correction. That’s part of the cycle.

As a european though, it is absolutely crazy to see you can do this on a day by day basis. Here you would have at least 1 month, more likely 3 month, prior notice to just being kicked out and having your accounts closed. You would also have to state a business reason for people who are employed as fixed staff. This gives people time to react to these kinds of things.

Edit: Sorry, this refers to a comment further below: Also, comparing this to the pandemic is kinda crazy, isn't it? It's one thing to have a global scale event effecting the lives of billions and another of just buying a company for way tooo much because you wanted to make a dumb joke about smoking weed.

America truely is a heartless, dystopian society...

Notice period is different from redundancy. Redundancy can mean you leave the day you’re made redundant. But they must give 30 days notice that redundancies are going to occur.

In australia you cannot hire for a redundant role for I believe 9 months? If you do you must rehire the people made redundant or face big fines.

> As a european though, it is absolutely crazy to see you can do this on a day by day basis. Here you would have at least 1 month, more likely 3 month, prior notice to just being kicked out and having your accounts closed.

That's not true, there are minimum periods for which you must continue to pay the employee after notice their contract will be terminated, but I'd be surprised to learn of any country where it's illegal to prevent the employee having access to the building, confidential documents, etc.

Cf. 'gardening leave'.

That's only for very senior management positions and highly paid specialists, I've never seen gardening leave for even middle management, much less an engineer.

We don't have to debate that though to agree that it demonstrates it's clearly not illegal.

>be surprised to learn of any country where it's illegal to prevent the employee having access to the building, confidential documents, etc.

And I'd surprised if there were many countries where you couldn't prevent an employee who had been notified they were being let go from having access to systems, documents, etc.

No I agree, that's exactly what I mean. You might still have to pay them, but if you don't want them to actually 'do work' for you that's fine. (It's your prerogative to have ever let them access any of that stuff to begin with, could've changed at any point during employment even if they still had a job.)

Yup. I misread.

I'm surprised by these "generous" packages. Where I work in Europe, they must give me 3 months notice, my full salary is paid for 6 months, after which it's 75% up to 2 years, and if I still don't find anything new by then I get 50% indefinitely.

I've worked in both the US and various EU countries, while the higher salary is certainly enticing, it's also a trap; When shit hits the fan, you better have been saving. In Europe, the money I make is money I get to really use, because the rest is taken care of for me.

> When shit hits the fan, you better have been saving. In Europe, the money I make is money I get to really use, because the rest is taken care of for me.

I wonder where this happy country is. In Germany it is already a common knowledge that relying on state for your retirement is a sure recipe for poverty in the old age.

France would fit.

It’s probably France

> In Germany it is already a common knowledge that relying on state for your retirement is a sure recipe for poverty in the old age.

Is it? I'm living in Germany since so many years and nobody told me this. They send me estimates about the money I'd be getting when retiring regularly, and while it'd mean downsizing, I'd not be poor with the amounts named.

Assuming you are somewhere in IT and earn above the average, you will be okay-ish. People with lower incomes will benefit less. But if you look at that receipt and consider inflation, the extreme rise in rent in Germany, etc and all of that over maybe 20-30 years from you ending your career. It becomes less. There are adjustments for inflation, but still.

These high pension values are also quite sure to be unsustainable for the government, as the workforce shrinks quite dramatically and people still get older.

Generally, people are advised to put some money for retirement on the side, if they can. If you are in a position to put some money aside probably try to do some research. "Geldanlage für Faule" by Sina Groß is a very down to earth starting place.

Great reply! To be honest, It's easy to forget about the inflation. Well, worst case, one could make more kids and invent their own "take care of your parents" ponzi-scheme, hehe.

Seriously though, in Germany, you always get this sense that everybody seems to know what they are doing until ??it hits the fan and you realize all that time nobody had cared about what's coming.

It is guaraneed to be less value in 20-30 years, because Germany's pensions are transferred directly from the pension fee deducted from salary of employees. And since in 20-30 years you will have a totally diffeerent ratio of number of employees vs. pensioners, the cake will be smaller and will have to be distributed to more people. No matter how inflation or anything works out in future, pensioners will then have less than pensioners now, who more or less live in paradise.

It's wise to be prepared for this scenario for the reasons you mention, but in 20-30 years a lot can obviously change; either a change to the way the pensions are funded (this already started happening to a small extent) or a sudden influx of qualified (!) migrants.

I wouldn't bet on any of it happening, but predicting the future is always hard.

Those benefits are ludicrous. How can any small company or startup survive if they have to contend with those kinds of requirements? If I were a business owner wherever you are I'd restrict my hiring as much as possible and try to find ways to not hire anyone, probably by contracting work out to other businesses or offshore completely.

Those benefits are not paid by the company, but by the state. That's one of the reasons why cash-in-hand salaries are lower in most "socialist" European countries: the State takes a big fat cut out of it (47% in France), so it can pay for these benefits.

Taxes in the USA are often just as high (remember to add in state and local taxes for an apples to apples comparison with European countries). And for that you get no "socialism" -- no healthcare until you're old, for example.

People forget to count the corporate taxes on the employers in Europe (to support the welfare state) which lowers the salaries of workers making the calculation look like taxes are similar.

Income taxes (Federal + CA) seem to be roughly in the same ballpark as France based on [0]. A French income tax simulator is available at [1]. This is the "simplified" version. What matters is box 1AJ for salaried income.

For 100000 USD it's actually a bit higher than for 100000 EUR.

However, as another commenter said, income tax is not the full story - far from it. There are other taxes that you have to pay. Also, while social security comes out of your paycheck, it's considered taxable income in France for the purposes of the income tax. Also, social security is usually insufficient, so you usually have to pay for a separate insurance. Which, you guessed it, isn't deductible from taxes.

As far as a company's concerned, if the employee costs 100 EUR "fully loaded", they only get around 55-60 EUR in hand. Also, when comparing with the US, don't forget that VAT is at 20-25% depending on the country. And, at least in France, VAT is levied on some taxes (yup), like for example electricity and gas.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/income-tax-calculator/califor...

[1] https://simulateur-ir-ifi.impots.gouv.fr/calcul_impot/2022/s...

Overall tax burden is quite different: https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-revenue.htm

US is around 25% whereas France is 45%

It's a good question. Here, if you have a permanent contract, the employer is required to pay into various government insurances, and this is mandatory for all employers. The salaries here are lower because of this, but it's deceiving because the insurances are based on your salary. Your employer also pays anywhere between 2-10% on top of your monthly salary into a pension fund on top of your state pension. So in short, if you make 100k EUR, after taxes that's actually your money. So in my case, after I've made my monthly mortgage payment, set some aside for groceries and some subscriptions, the money I have left can be spent on whatever I want without worry, I practically don't need to save unless I choose to.

You're right in that employers restrict hiring as much as possible, what tends to happen here is you get a 1 year contract with the option to be taken on permanently, and these contracts don't have all of the insurances. Taking a permanent contract here is seen as a serious commitment to the company, so most people who just want more money in their bank account at the end of the month choose not to take permanent contracts and take the risk themselves.

If I saved for these things myself in the US, I would've been netting less than I do here in Europe, despite my US salary being 100k higher. A lot of people live way beyond their means with all these things considered.

The value of benefits packages in the US is often around 40% of the salary. For example, health insurance, social security, 401k matching contributions, stock options, etc.

> The salaries here are lower because of this, but it's deceiving because the insurances are based on your salary.

Salaries in Europe are much lower even when all the salary and benefit related expenses (so called "gross 2" salary) are taken into account.

Many don't contend with those requirements and it's one of myriad reasons that we're mostly talking about U.S. companies on this site.

> How can any small company or startup survive if they have to contend with those kinds of requirements?

That's why Twitter didn't start there.

If Twitter had started there the US would have just scooped it up with their free monopoly money.

The free monopoly money that is somehow worth more than the european monopoly money.

Because weapons.

Only the designated world reserve currency is truly free monopoly money.

That's beside the point if Europe's regulatory structure (among other reasons) made starting a business there less attractive anyway.

Which is why in many European countries employers are so hesitant to hire - you’re signing up for years of paying someone.

So imagine your the next unicorn? Would you hire like crazy in Europe?

I tried starting a manufacturing site in Switzerland. We wanted to get the Swiss Made badge (70% parts sourced in Switzerland and all major assembly steps done by Swiss employees). An hourly employee had basic rate of CHF 45 an hour and they had to be paid some ridiculous benefits totaling up to like CHF 120 an hour. Apart from the cost, the biggest issue is that you can’t fire them essentially if you hire them on “permanent basis”. It’s impossible to do anything there for a scrappy small business.

Modern Switzerland is much of a socialist state. It’s lost all the things that made it a great place for business. Zurich is still a small tech hub for startups but mostly services and finance. Labor is usually hired in US or elsewhere.

About the only place in EU that's pro-small business is Italy. It still has some 50% of the GDP from companies less than 50 employees.

Pretty much what I expected. Also, I'm surprised that the Swiss Franc is worth exactly the same as the US Dollar. Is it pegged to it? 45USD per hour for an hourly manufacturing job is shocking as well, that's about $90k per year. I'm sure it makes it a nice place to live but God help them if they ever need to get something done in a hurry. I imagine they have to tightly control immigration as well.

Why won't someone think of the business!

No jobs without businesses, so really we are keeping the workers in mind.

No businesses without workers or consumers as well so it's a wash and neither should receive preferential treatment

I recognize those numbers and suspect he's talking about the Netherlands. If so, he/she is being incredibly inaccurate in describing benefits.

If you're on a permanent contract, there's a minimum legal notice that depends on years served and your age. So it's not "6 months", it's a variable amount of months. It may be as little as 0.5-2 months if you've worked there for < 5 years. If you're not on a permanent contract, the notice is: BYE.

As for "75% for 2 years", that's not the employer paying you, it's the state. Unemployment benefits. Where both "75%" and "2 years" are lacking some crucial details. It's max 75% of a fixed cap. So if you're a high earner, you might only get 25-50% of your previous salary. Further, you'll be intensely pressurized to find that new job, where you need to supply weekly evidence of job interviews. You can't just take a holiday for 2 years. By the way, you paid for the above yourself, directly from your payslip.

As for "50% indefinitely", this is state wellfare. Which is absolute hell. You don't easily qualify for it and you're even more pressurized to find a job, any job. You'll be closely monitored and you can't own anything of any worth. So if you were a highroller owning assets before, get ready to be stripped naked. Next, you'll have the social stigma of being a leech. Have this on your resume, and its goodbye career.

I'm honestly pissed about the inaccuracy of the poster.

> and if I still don't find anything new by then I get 50% indefinitely

So you can just retire after being fired?

> In Europe, the money I make is money I get to really use, because the rest is taken care of for me.

That's certainly not universally true in Europe.

Yes, but you don't tend to get fired on permanent contracts to begin with and it's much more enticing to find something new especially considering work-life balance is very very good, I work maybe 24 hours at most with my company explicitly putting your personal life before work because a healthy employee is a healthy employer. You also still pay taxes over the 50% income you're receiving and taxes are high, so it pushes you to find something new -eventually-.

> So you can just retire after being fired?

Not in my country (in Europe). You get unemployment benefits for up to 2+ years that is a percentage of your salary up to a certain level, depending on your job history in the last 2-3 years. The maximum you can get is around $40k USD, which can be difficult because you probably have a mortgage and other expenses that were calibrated to a much higher salary.

You are also required to actively apply for jobs, and you may be required to take a job application course. I think you can even be assigned to a job interview if you delay. It is not intended as a "free" paid vacation. I think that even in some cases you are theoretically required to take any job anywhere in the country even if you have to move, but I haven't heard of anyone who had to do that. I assume they look at your social situation (family etc.)

Every 2 weeks you need to send in a form where you state that you have been actively looking for work and your financial situation is unchanged. If you forget to check some boxes, you lose all your money for the 2 weeks. Vacation is also regulated and you need to inform your local government and in some cases you will not receive money for the period. You are assumed to spend a full working week applying for jobs.

After 2 years you are placed into a different type of program where you don't get a fixed amount, but you get money according to what the local government decides you need. That means you would need to sell your big house and move to a cheaper appartement if you want to get any support. If you had any savings, you would probably have to spend them before getting any assistance.

Sorry, what? Am I misunderstanding? In Europe after you get fired, you can opt to just draw 50% of your old salary indefinitely? Who's paying it?

>Who's paying it?

Very rich people and large companies, generally.

> In Europe after you get fired, you can opt to just draw 50% of your old salary indefinitely?

No, definitely not in "Europe" in general (well, according to sweaty you can in some parts of Europe, although I have my doubts).

That's certainly not true in all European countries. In Switzerland, for example, you get 70% (80 for very low salaries) of your old salary for 1.5 years (2 years if you're over 50). After that, if you still don't have a job, you're on your own (if you're broke, you can apply for social welfare).

Lmao, americans shocked when they realized that proper social welfare is a thing always baffles me. To reply to you genuine question : 1. Yes it is a thing. 2. Everybody is paying for it through taxes.

50% of yoursalary is not a simple safety net and is extremely excessive for well-paid software engineers of the sort being laid off at e.g. Twitter.

I support a modest minimum income provided by the government, but 50% of salary indefinitely is insane, it only makes sense if everyone is low paid.

Properly taxed wealthy people and corporations.

So in exchange for software engineering salaries that are 8-10 thousand american dollars lower per month at least. you get a fraction of a much lower salary in unemployment benefits?

In what universe would that be "properly taxed"? You're saying I can work for 1 year in a $200K/year job and then draw $100k x 30 years = $3,000,000 of value from that one year of work? And it would be fair and just to tax "wealthy people" on my behalf for that?

I still feel like I must be misinterpreting something here, because I can't imagine even the leftiest of leftists thinking this sounds fair. That's basically just UBI except the rate is set for each individual based on whatever the high-water mark of their lifetime earnings were at any point?

"Europe" isn't a unified system. Those benefits definitely don't exist in the UK, and I'd still consider our labour laws to be well-balanced and reasonably fair to both employees and employers.

As a European I have never heard of such things.

> after which it's 75% up to 2 years, and if I still don't find anything new by then I get 50% indefinitely.

But this is not paid by the company, right? Where in Europe do companies have to pay you 6 months for firing you?

Which country is that? Those benefits are insanely generous - the type that would make me never want to start a company there.

Every coin has 2 sides - yes we have this additional security (which I love, just like everybody else), but we pay for it. Much lower salaries, companies not so agile, so they are hardly world leaders. You simply can't get compensation like those folks had/have in Europe, not as perm employee on 100%, more like 25-50% of it.

Its actually great, skilled people can choose their priorities and how they want to setup their lives and career (stupid immigration policies and bad stuff coming out of it notwithstanding).

I prefer something in between - ie Switzerland. Salaries higher, taxation lower, some middle ground on social security - ie easy to fire people, usual 3 months notice by law, but social system will give you 70% of your salary (up to an OK limit) for first year, you just need to keep doing the job hunt. It means you are not shit-scared if you take a mortgage for example, you don't need to have such a massive reserve like in US. And of course top of the world healthcare that cost very little (sickness, accidents are 0 if you work/retired) and cca free top notch education including best universities.

Europe has plenty of world leaders and very large cooperations.

Just a few examples: Automotive manufacturers, Siemens, ASML, Several arms manufacturer, Airbus just to name a few.

In addition, at least where I am, there are a million small companies (a few hundred employees) who deliver to customers around the world and, I assume, at market prices.

It's a balance and probably one of the reasons we lost out on the digital race so far.

> you don't need to have such a massive reserve like in US

If it makes you feel better people in the US don’t have massive reserves either. They just gamble and hit up credit if things hit the fan, even at FAANG salaries.

In the European places you never get fired. They just make sure you quit.

> you would have at least 1 month, more likely 3 month, prior notice to just being kicked out

At this point we have no idea what kind of severance package Twitter will be offering. I think it's likely that what you're saying is pretty much what they're going to wind up with - that is, Twitter will push them out the door, but with a check equivalent to something like 60 days of pay plus like continuation of benefits. Of course, I don't know this for sure, but neither do you, so there's no point in condemning or praising them yet.

Many Americans think Europe is heartless because youth unemployment is allowed to get so high because businesses are paralyzed to protect those that have work and thus can never reorganize.

Knee-capping the dynamism of youth is a current consensus of the European system.

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