Hacker News Reader

Comment by bix6 | Hacker News Reader

Which companies have great training programs and happy lifetime employees?

The main one that comes to mind is Costco.

Plenty in Asia. But in the west, that's a hard question. Especially since the few that come to mind, like Costco and In n Out, aren't exactly "lifetime careers" for most people.

Apple came so close. Still very young, but their retention seems better than competitors and they dodged a lot of the layoff stuff the rest did (with caveats. They simply "did not renew" contractors). But that came to an end in May.

I'd probably need to look up some companies in trades, but my impression is many of those are small businesses as opposed to a corporate career.

Not TSMC

> One big problem is that TSMC has been trying to do things the Taiwanese way, even in the U.S. In Taiwan, TSMC is known for extremely rigorous working conditions, including 12-hour work days that extend into the weekends and calling employees into work in the middle of the night for emergencies. TSMC managers in Taiwan are also known to use harsh treatment and threaten workers with being fired for relatively minor failures.

> TSMC quickly learned that such practices won’t work in the U.S. Recent reports indicated that the company’s labor force in Arizona is leaving the new plant over these perceived abuses, and TSMC is struggling to fill those vacancies. TSMC is already heavily dependent on employees brought over from Taiwan, with almost half of its current 2,200 employees in Phoenix coming over as Taiwanese transplants.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...

It's definitely not 'perceived' abuses according to those in the know... it's been known within the AZ workforce for a while, but has been slowly leaking out into the national news articles. They're "literally violating US Labor Laws" (not my words, but hearsay would agree), but most are either too afraid or don't believe anything will be done.

Anymore, it's rare to find. UPS used to create lifers because their benefits were so good, including free education and a stipend for an apartment even. That's all gone, I think, as they were paring it back in the late 90s already.

And nearly everyone has gotten rid of pensions, sadly.

Defined-benefit pensions stopped making sense for a variety of tax and other reasons--including that to get any benefit you typically needed to stay at a place at least 5 years with 10-20 years to get a big benefit. A benefits friend of mine tells me there are some newer programs that work differently from the traditional ones though they're still not that common as far as I can tell.

when i interviewed with nvidia they said they aimed to be the kind of company where people stayed forever and worked on long term projects. ultimately the interview process moved too slowly for me (i had been laid off and needed to find and accept another job fast), but i was impressed with everyone i talked to and would believe that that was not just a pitch but actually reflected their values.

I've heard they retained well, and basically took the forefront in both AI and GPU vending in general. That plus the specialized knowledge needed to work with such tech leads me to believe that claim. They'll be stable for decades unless something catastropic (depression level) happens.

If you read /r/costco, supposedly the new bosses have changed a lot of things for the worse, especially for the non floor employees.

the only thing I can think of is the military and that's only in some circumstances

Reply on news.ycombinator.com