In this system al the burden and risk is shifted solely on the applicant. So what does he or she gets in return? It's not clear from the article. I would expect that in order to attract applicants they must
- either be desperate,
- or have a salary offer in sight more than 2.5 times the market's average.
In a traditional hiring process, you'd be hired, not work out in the first month, and then get fired. No unemployment or ongoing insurance for the employee, and a lot of paperwork and the possibility of a wrongful termination lawsuit for the employer.
By starting things off on a contract, both the employer and the employee have a chance to evaluate one another. It's really exactly the same as the traditional hire-fire process, but with less paperwork, and clear expectations on both sides.
That's got to be compensation for New York not being a right-to-work state
$25/hour: seriously?
It is also possible here to offer the applicant a temporary contract which can be renewed two times (for the same contract period). Both parties needs to keep to this contract, they can only end it on pre-negotiated terms. After two renewals of the contract the employer needs to let you go or your contract changes in a normal, non-temporary one.
I think these measures are more appropriate to deal with uncertainties about possible misfits? It makes sure both parties make a commitment for trying to make it fit as I see it.
I read something completely opposite here:
«Candidates get about three weeks of work to complete in a week — and not much guidance. “It’s ‘Here’s your desk and some people you should know,’ ” Mr. Rusenko said.»
I wonder if they could not improve their interviewing skills.
If I had 7 weeks vacation, maybe. Much less that you can basically only do a trial like this once a year, but spending half of your two weeks vacation a year might be worth a lot more than money.
I think they're interested in actually hiring people, but it's a nice side effect that they get some low-cost work done (the article doesn't mention the pay, but I doubt they are compensating you what you make at your current position + intangibles for taking your vacation to work there). Another metric to look at would be whether this company is actually investing in their employees (paid training, conferences, new productivity tools, etc.). The trial period, supposed workload, and the hard criteria that you MUST complete the work is a huge red flag.
I guess it's a bit of cash in pocket for the unemployed though.
Would an employer be able to squeeze 3 weeks of work out of a potential candidate on their vacation unless the employee had no other choice? That to me is not how a labor market should function in a first-world country.
edit: /u/dismal2 said it much better
Keywords for more research: "post scarcity", "historical productivity to wages"
No, its not. Benefit eligibility is driven primarily by previous contributions (either yours or, if you are relying on survivors benefits, someone else's), with various qualifying events. Its not (even leaving out the "age test") anything like BI, except in the extremely distant way any way that the government gives you money is "like" BI.
No, no more than you can exhaust a purchased annuity. Which is also not like an age-tested BI.
> Or is it an entitlement that you have to qualify for (credits over a number of years) and then can continue to draw until death?
Right, so, exactly not like BI, which is equal and unconditional (even excluding consideration of the influence of age, since its specifically based on the amount of contributions, adjusted by the the wage index from the time they were earned, and then adjusted by the CPI from the time benefits started being drawn.
In a sense, its more of a retrospective reverse-means-tested benefit program, which makes it about as far from BI as you can be and still be a government benefit program at all.
Kind of irrelevant to the point regardless of whether the statement is correct because social security, if it did not already exist (but all other things were somehow still the same) would (incredibly unfortunately, IMO) have absolutely no hope of being instituted in this country either.
The US of 2014 is not the US of 1935.
The main problems I see with it are:
1.) How to recruit from companies with restrictive IP covenants or moonlighting clauses. There's no way Google would've let me do something like this when I was working for them, for example, and most companies would like the option of hiring ex-Googlers if they're interested.
2.) It eliminates the ability to check out many options in parallel, which is essential for negotiating a fair wage as an employee. A company can "test drive" many possible employees at once; a person can generally only work for one effectively.