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Comment by IndoCanada | Hacker News Reader

But it is difficult to fire them which is a big problem for tech companies where hiring and firing are common

I hear this a lot and it's difficult to reconcile with my experience. Every US company I've worked at (and that's always been in at-will states) has not made it easy to get rid of people. Even people with woefully bad records of losing money every year and having multiple harassment complaints filed against them were kept for nearly a decade. With one exception (I personally got fired from a tiny startup because I refused to commit timesheet fraud for the CEO), the stories I've heard of the lengths that European companies have to go through to fire someone sound exactly the same to the processes I've seen at all of my employers.

You describe a scenario where management didn't want to fire someone - that's why it was harder. In the U.S. only two things get in the way: A) venial corruption B) worrying about unemployment insurance (that's why HR makes you do paperwork documenting an issue).

In many European countries you have to file a ton of paperwork and justify it: ex. at Google, they're still working through _January 2023_ layoffs because you have to work with the government itself and there isn't a good* financial reason for it

* by European standards. "we need stonk to go up" doesn't fly if you're massively profitable

Ive worked at a lot of different earlier stage software companies in the US and we've always fired very quickly, especially if there was harassment, but also just for low performance. Were you working at bigger companies? (aside from the tiny startup where the ceo wanted you to commit fraud) This hasn't been my experience at all.

Own a small startup in US. Not hard to fire people. Can do it same day I decide to.

> Every US company I've worked at (and that's always been in at-will states) has not made it easy to get rid of people.

That's an internal choice they do, to avoid having a reputation of a company that fires people any second (but then you have companies like netflix which take pride in having that reputation, but make up for it by paying more).

However, it's very different from European companies where these processes are (often) driven by laws. In the US there are no employee protection laws (aside from protected classes) so even if the company has a rigorous internal process, they could at any second override it if someone high up says so and you'll be fired in the blink of an eye.

It's very easy to fire in Switzerland. The notice periods are usually longer than in North America, but everyone having unemployment insurance where they are paid ~80% of their salary for up to 2 years makes is not such a big deal.

Can you say more about unemployment insurance? I haven't heard of this [a us worker] and honestly I also wouldn't mind being more aggressive with my career if I can guarantee ~80% of my income for 2 years should I lose a job.

You have a mandatory deduction on your salary (2.2%, a bit less effectively if you make over 150k). You need to have contributed for at least a year in the past 2 years before you're eligible.

You get 70% of your salary (or 80% if you have children under 25) for two years, capped at 70% (or 80%) of 150k.

There are a lot more exceptions, special cases and so on, but that's the gist of it.

It's state by state and different states have vastly different rules.

Here in Virginia, the max, regardless of how much you made, is $378/wk, for a max of 12 weeks.

You can't claim it if you're also receiving a severance, and you also have to record at least 4 job applications each week, but the documentation required needs to include information like the hiring manager's full contact information, which usually means the company needs to have replied to your application within that week.

I got laid off back at the end of April last year. I got a month of severance, so I couldn't claim UC in May. In June, I was able to do some online sleuthing to figure it out for a few applications out of the dozens I was making in a week, but there were some weeks I wasn't able to scrounge together even 4. I ended up with 2 UC checks for a total of $756 gross (yes, had to pay taxes on it). I don't remember exactly how much, but I do remember I calculated it was less than 20% my original take home pay for a month.

Luckily, by the end of June I had a good line on a job and started in July. I got lucky that we could bridge a month of basically "no" income from me. I can't imagine what it would be like for a single-income family living here in one of the most expensive areas of the country.

It's a kind of a tax - computed from your income. Similar to health insurance (in Europe). There are caveats like "you must be actively looking for a job" and "you weren't fired for an offense".

"but everyone having unemployment insurance where they are paid ~80% of their salary for up to 2 years makes is not such a big deal."

That's a big problem for US based tech companies

You are mixing up EU and Switzerland, employment laws are very different (and each EU state has its own, but generally much more protective of employees than Swiss ones).

One of the reasons Google has long term big center in Zurich, if grass would be greener (since cheaper it is) in say Germany or Austria they would build there

> One of the reasons Google has long term big center in Zurich, if grass would be greener (since cheaper it is) in say Germany or Austria they would build there

I don't think Google has an office in Zurich because it's cheap. It's mostly due to a lot of talent available (ETHZ, EFPL, etc).

Offshore centers are cost centers Most important projects are done at the HQ

Cost centers is a nonsense definition, if they didn't help the company make profit they'd be closed down.

Use international contractors ? Or is the deduction for local devs only ?

And it's hard and time consuming to hire in the EU also

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