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Comment by jandrewrogers | Hacker News Reader

America has very low unemployment and median household incomes are among the highest in the world. You get to continue your existing health insurance 18 months after you quit if you wish, you just have to pay for it. Most people can and if you can’t then the government pays for it.

While getting terminated is disruptive, it isn’t the end of the world for the typical American. The relative ease with which most people can get another job is also nice. It is an economy that is structured under the assumption that people will move between jobs and minimizes the friction in doing so.

I have seen the “having a contract” thing abused many times in many countries in Europe. Thanks, but no thanks. I have had that contract multiple times and I don’t want that contract. That safety blanket comes with heavy chains. I’ve seen those contracts used to stifle far too many employees to condone it, employees deserve better.

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The flipside is that you have no job security. In Europe, we've been moving towards more American style "flexible employment" for years, and it's highly controversial.

As an aging guy, I'm also staring down the barrel of cross-party consensus on replicating the predatory US healthcare model in my country. I see what things look like in the States, and no thanks.

> While getting terminated is disruptive, it isn’t the end of the world for the typical American.

Whenever conversations like this come up, I feel the need to remind folks that most folks don't work in tech for colossal salaries. Around a quarter of Americans have less than USD 1,000 saved, most under 5,000.[0] No runway is the norm, I'd put that well above "disruptive" for "most Americans".

[^0] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/savings/average-ameri...

They don't save because they don't need to since there's always a job available as hiring is so easy. In Europe we need to save in case we want to quit, since then we lose all rights and protections and need to wait months before finding a new job.

A major reason poor people don't save is the inflationary currency and government control of interest rates (plus other central bank policy) encourages debt over saving. We slowly put a noose around our necks because our laws put lights on that runway. We need major reform to get back to a saving mindset. It'll be a world where the government will borrow and print far less money.

I'm looking at the data and there is zero relationship between inflation, interest rates and personal savings in the USA. People save in time of crisis (2008, covid, etc.), and don't when the economy is good (1990 -> 2007)

Poor people don't save because they are poor and there's nothing to save.

It costs loads more to be poor than to have some money. You won't save money by buying up-front, if your credit is low you'll pay more than a person with more money, you miss payments and the late fees rack up, you overdraft and your fees add up, you can't go on autopay to save money because you risk going into overdraft, etc.

Maybe if the 1% didn't own 50% off all the resources (money) than poor people could find some money to save.

While your comment may shed some light on the nuances, gp’s point shouldn’t be disregarded. Losing income and health insurance is in fact amongst the most practical of repercussions one can experience upon losing a job.

That this needs to be spelled out just shows that HN operates in an extremely privileged bubble. Some people are aware of it, but most don’t seem to be.

In what way is losing income from quitting different in at-will vs the article? Losing the income is a consequence, but it's the same consequence in both cases and so is not part of the conversation and silly to mention.

> In what way is losing income from quitting different in at-will vs the article?

This question isn’t relevant to the claim that I am responding to.

> Losing the income is a consequence, but it's the same consequence in both cases and so is not part of the conversation

You’re right that having no income is the same as having no income, and the manner in which it was lost does not matter. But the state of “having no income” does indeed matter. That statement is relevant to this conversation due to gp’s claim that losing income and health insurance are not “practical repercussions” of losing employment. That’s a naïveté that a stable society cannot abide.

The other part is that companies are much more willing to hire people if they know they can get rid of them if either that person ends up sucking or business starts to fall off.

I believe it’s the case that in some places, bureaucrats can basically just say “no” if you decide to lay people off. Why would you want to hire people in the first place if there were a risk of that happening, especially if you have the option to hire people in a different country?

In most of them there is an initial probationary trial period during which you can easily fire someone without providing any justification, and with a minimal mandatory notice.

It goes both ways: during that time, the employee too can quit with a reduced mandatory notice.

That only covers the "if that person ends up sucking" part though.

For the other "business falling apart", maybe they consider it’s part of the business owner’s responsibility to make sound business decisions when involving someone else’s livelihood. Just like when leasing a shop or taking on a loan.

> For the other "business falling apart", maybe they consider it’s part of the business owner’s responsibility to make sound business decisions when involving someone else’s livelihood. Just like when leasing a shop or taking on a loan.

What about running a tech startup with high chance of failure? Ever considered why they seem to be few and far between in EU?

No, I really haven’t. Please enlighten me.

(and remember to figure out a difference that applies to San Francisco and Boston and NYC and Austin but not Kansas City or New Orleans.)

Yes, naturally such a system is biased towards high accountability and high trust industries. Industries which thrive on minimal accountability and trust won't function very well. Personally, I think that's a good thing overall. The problem comes in when other countries don't operate this way, so those businesses can just go there (and take your talent with you, i.e. brain drain).

France is especially like that, with consequent mass unemployment. That's the model the progressive side of our politics wants to emulate.

> The other part is that companies are much more willing to hire people if they know they can get rid of them if either that person ends up sucking or business starts to fall off.

That and other reasons (few vacantion days, request to overtime, etc) is why one should avoid American companies in Europe, if possible.

Trust goes both ways.

> Most people can and if you can’t then the government pays for it.

For now.

> The relative ease with which most people can get another job is also nice.

This seems unemphathetic. Even just for the tech industry, thousands of engineers have found it difficult to find new work after the layoffs of the previous years. Please do not extrapolate your experience of the ease of finding new work towards every other American.

> It is an economy that is structured under the assumption that people will move between jobs and minimizes the friction in doing so.

No. Even if you look at it from a process perspective, true minimized friction is when other countries goverments automatically deduct and manage your taxes when you move jobs, manage retirement funds and have socialized healthcare to reduce the stress and uncertainty during unemployment. You claim that "at-will" minimizes friction is a joke compared to those.

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