Google's layoffs in Korea has hit a snag as some employees are refusing to go | Hacker News Reader

Google's layoffs in Korea has hit a snag as some employees are refusing to go

businessinsider.com

45 pointsfrays20 comments

It sounds like they're barricading themselves inside the office but in reality they are just exercising their local statutory rights. According to the article Google can't just fire them like that without wrongdoing on their part. But only suggest they leave and not all of them followed this suggestion.

If Google wants to do business there they'll have to follow local laws.

I don't know how else it would be possible but the article is not about people being laid off chaining themselves to theirs desks and refusing to leave the building. It's about google "suggesting" them to resign because the law does not allow them to be fired without cause. (This is the case in a lot places outside of the US).

> law does not allow them to be fired without cause. (This is the case in a lot places outside of the US).

Most places have an opt-out if you're reducing headcount (e.g. due to cost cutting measures rather than firing individual employees due to specific or specific reasons)

Yes we have it too. It's not automatically a "just" cause. The workers have the right to sue to be reinstated. That usually nets them 8-12 months of their salary above what they already got as severance. (And severance is not optional either) If they resign though. It's a clean departure. Company pays nothing and can even get paid if the employee does not work in the severance period. Of course in the current case there would be a deal for resigning.

Screw suggested resignations. Common bane in India, where nobody reveals they were let go from their employer.

Some contexts: South Korean labor laws have employee protection to the level close to EU. Basically you cannot fire employees without strong, urgent business justifications and you need to do best efforts to avoid layoff. Also you gotta negotiate with labor union if there's any with the majority of its employees, not sure if this is applicable to this case though, as the union seems small.

This is quite a headache for employers, so most companies begin with voluntary/recommended resignation and you're typically going to have a good number of employees who's okay to accept that with good severance packages. The problem is that Google doesn't want to give it. I think >$100B cash reserve is meant to be something, but their execs might have different opinions?

How does this normally work when a Korean business needs to downsize? Is there sort of a cultural understanding of the need and the employees sort out together which ones with accept the resignation offer? Five employees sounds like a really low limit and like an affected business could be quite small, so what happens if business slows down enough that not all 6 employees can be paid, but none of them want to go?

Are the rules different too when the business itself needs to close? Or do the 6 employees have some kind of opportunity to take over the business if they don't want to be terminated?

I'm really interested in understanding more about this model, because it's so different from the "at-will employment" that I'm used do, and used to seeing higher-ups in companies defend as the only workable way.

> How does this normally work when a Korean business needs to downsize?

Don't know how it works in South Korean but typically if a business is losing money, then it's easy to layoff people.

The problem for Google is that they are not losing money (understatement), so they can't claim that they need to downsize.

These kind of provisions provide an effective counter measure to hire and fire, which is welcome.

I wonder what kind of resignation package Google is offering, in these countries where it can't just arbitrarily fire people.

in most western countries you cannot be fired without cause.

Generally FAANG/etc. resignation packages seem to be a lot better even in the US than what would be legally required in most/all European countries.

Europe = lower compensation packages, because it's expected the government "takes care of you" from the high taxes you paid in case you get laid off

Google discover that not all countries have the same laws about work than the US

Yeh, they should've Bing'd the local laws before doing it.

"Recommended resignation" sounds to me like the best employees will leave immediately (because they have alternatives lined up) and you're left with only those employees who expect that it'll be difficult to find another job, for example because those are the low performers.

In some countries you can't fire people unless you can prove they did something wrong.

Hideously evil company

Not to their employees. I don't believe many people's careers were harmed by having Google on their CVs for only 1 year.

Indeed. Better to have worked for a year at Google and then get laid off, than never to have worked at Google at all. You had a year of good pay and a boost on your resume. Win-win. Sure, it didn't last, but not every good thing can last forever anyway.

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