> Since I was working for a German entity of a company, I want to address a common myth about job security in Germany. Many people believe that it’s nearly impossible to be fired in Germany. While this is partially true for individuals who have completed their probation period, it doesn’t hold up in the context of layoffs. If a company decides to lay off, for instance, 40 employees, German law doesn’t prevent this. Instead, the law enforces a social scoring system to determine who is affected, prioritizing the protection of the most vulnerable employees, such as those with children. In this sense, when it comes to layoffs, the difference between Germany and the US is minimal.
The author decries how he was laid off despite his contribution then - without a hint of irony - says Germany isn't as safe for employees as most people think because layoffs are legally required to take into account information completely disconnected from your contributions at work.
Of course if you have legal structures that make it harder to fire people based on what they do outside of work, you will be forced to lay off people you otherwise wouldn't.
What are the odds the author got laid off despite his contributions precisely because somebody who earned more than him and did less couldn't be fired because they happened to have children? In the US it would be approximately zero. Even if the person picking names knows you have kids - but they don't because they're usually 3-4 levels above you - they have to justify the names to their boss and "J. Doe just had their second kid so let's keep them around until next year" will absolutely not fly.
> If a company decides to lay off, for instance, 40 employees, German law doesn’t prevent this.
At least this part is partially wrong. There is an entire law about how lay offs are only allowed if they are “socially justified” with definitions of acceptable circumstances. An employer can not fire you “at will” in Germany.
I had the same reaction. This sort of law makes it very expensive to keep ambitious young folk like the author in a layoff.
I am very confused about how this works in practice though. Presumably you're not expected to keep an old accountant with a family over a young childless developer, but where is that line actually drawn? Can you make such a distinction between teams, or are you expected to reassign people from a team that is being disbanded? What if they don't have some experience you would like, are you expected to train them?
From this article by a German lawyer, "the question will always be whether one employee can replace the other in the event of illness or absence on leave.":
> Section 1 (3) sentence 1 KSchG provides four criteria that have to be taken into account in the selection decision: Length of service, age, statutory maintenance obligations and the employee's severe disability.
> The employer must first determine which employees work at the same level in the company and can therefore be replaced. The group of employees determined in this way is what is known as a horizontal comparability. Social selection is then carried out in this group on the basis of the legally prescribed criteria. The members of the respective group are then ranked according to their need for social protection.
> Older employees are more in need of protection than younger ones. A longer period of employment also increases the need for protection, as does the existence of statutory maintenance obligations and the presence of a severe disability.
> Section 1 (3) sentence 1 KSchG does not indicate how the social aspects mentioned are to be put in relation to each other, which is why each of the four criteria is to be given equal importance.
> When reducing staff, employers often make use of point schemes through which points are assigned to the individual social criteria. It also gives information through which the need for social protection of the employees in the comparison group can be assessed.
> All employees who are interchangeable must be included in the social selection. Criteria that can be used in this examination are the vocational training as well as the practical experience and knowledge that the respective employees have. If there is comparability, these workers are horizontally interchangeable. In practice, the question will always be whether one employee can replace the other in the event of illness or absence on leave.
It seems pretty obvious to me that this makes it much harder for people with severe disabilities to get hired in the first place, especially for progressive degenerative diseases.
If I'm a company that is expanding at the edge of my capability, I'm not going to hire anyone with any "need for protection" that I'm able to suss out during the application or interview process because if I need to reduce staff I'm stuck with them whether they're the best or not.
The hard to lay off makes it harder to hire as well. Sure you get the 6 month probation period, but it is risky to hire anyone because they might make it past those 6 months before bad times come.
You will have a hard time convincing me that at will employment and hire-fast-fire-fast mentality is not objectively better than whatever you might call the German-style system. (Notice I didn't say it's good, just better)
The German-style system seems to treat a job as something the employee is guaranteed, that it's their inherent right to have, rather than something the employer chooses to give them. It doesn't seem to line up with reality.
Better for whom? I think most people sleep better knowing that they can't be let go for no reason, no notice and no severance tomorrow.
Yes, you can lay off people in Germany, and France, and Italy. But there are rules, notice periods, and mandatory severances, as well as often (country dependent) consultation periods. In what way is that worse for the employee?
It's worse because people don't want to hire in those countries and the conjecture here is also that layoffs are unrelated to productivity, so there is nothing you can personally do to avoid getting laid off except having a family.
So it's worse for people who are productive in their jobs.
We were approached by a French startup looking for an acquihire and well, French labor law was a big reason not to do it (not because the people at the startup weren't good, but because staffing an Eng office around them was seen as too risky).
To some extent perception is reality here; we didn't really know that much about French labor laws, but the reputation and uncertainty is the issue.
I'm not saying there should be no rules but saying "you can't lay off Employee A because he has kids, you have to lay off Employee B instead because they don't" with absolutely no consideration of work product is pretty asinine on its face.
Laying people off is a business decision - forcing a company to justify that from a business context is probably a Good Thing, but injecting weird social requirements on top of that is silly.
It makes sense if you consider the social cost of having children live through their parents' layoff.
Meanwhile businesses enjoy the privilege of operating in a country where contracts are enforced and people are educated. In exchange they're expected to not treat their employees like cattle - that's not a lot to ask IMHO.
What social cost? You should not be so invested in your job that getting layoffs would have any social costs. There might be economic costs, but there are many ways to handle that so they don't become social costs.
At will employment means it is lower risk to pay employees high salaries. People in US tech clear $500k/year because if you are worth the $500k/yr the business keeps you as the arrangement is mutually beneficial and if you are not worth the $500k/yr you are gone.
You cannot have it both ways. Either high salaries and easy to fire or low salaries and hard to fire.
For me personally, at will employment has been beneficial. I make around 4x as much money as my European peers and I aggressively save. At this point I could be out of a job for 10 years and still be ahead of those working in Europe.
I guess it's a matter of perspective.
Duties and rights/freedoms are usually connected. Like you have the right to tiger arms, but that entails the duty to stash and use them responsibly. You have the right to ride your car where you want to go, but that entails the duty of obeying traffic laws.
For this specific example: You have the duty to work, but that entails the right to have a job.
Does it entail the right to have a job you find enjoyable or fulfilling? Hell no! (hour long commutes or jobs you are clearly overqualified for are things you'll just have to accept according to this model still. "Culture mismatch" is not in the vocabulary of social security payout offices, interestingly)
To me it still sounds better than "no job? well guess bad luck for you" though. ymmv
You don't have a right to drive your car anywhere - the state can revoke it. Many states have no laws at all about how to store firearms, and the ones that do in general are pretty hostile to the idea that you have a right to bear arms in the first place. You don't have a duty to work, someone isn't morally wrong because they live off family money. And you absolutely do not have a right to a job, because a job requires someone else to pay you money. Nobody has a right to have someone else pay them money.
> Nobody has a right to have someone else pay them money.
In the not too distant past, you didn't need money to live. If you wanted to brave the elements, make your own shelter, grow/gather/hunt your own food, and deal with the threats on your own, you could do that. Now, you can't do that. Everything is owned. You need to have money to buy or lease land to live on. If nobody gives you money (or land), you can't make a life for yourself, because one must live on land, and all the land is owned.
Does this mean that people have a right to receive money? I'm not sure about that. I think the argument that people should have a right to be able to work and receive money has some merit, although certainly flaws too. It is at least worth considering that the world and society has changed and crystallized substantially over the last couple centuries, and the system of money is forced upon everyone.
> In the not too distant past, you didn't need money to live.
Are you calling prehistory the not too distance past? From what I can tell from history most useful land was owned by someone. How it was owned varied, from tribes that kept other tribes off their land (no personal ownership), villages that kept protected the local's land, "lords" that had control of various amounts of lands.
Sometimes there were plagues and so for a short time you could find land that nobody controlled, but that didn't last long if the land was useful. It might be enough for you to establish yourself on that land, but it wasn't a constant thing.
If you want to go live in the woods and live off the land there are plenty of places you can do that. Go to Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, you will absolutely be able to find a place where you can do exactly this.
That you can't do it in Suffolk or Santa Clara County is not proof it's impossible.
@pc86 hi thanks for your reply!
I'm not from the US so I don't understand how this works, maybe you would be kind enough to explain it to me?
Like which land specifically a person could go to to live off of. Are there unowned patches of land in the regions you mentioned? One specific example where I could go tomorrow, set up a hut and live my eremite life without anyone bothering me. I certainly assume that there are places where one could sneak through, not getting noticed etc. but it seems your claim is that one could do the dropout life legally?
> Since I was working for a German entity of a company, I want to address a common myth about job security in Germany. Many people believe that it’s nearly impossible to be fired in Germany. While this is partially true for individuals who have completed their probation period, it doesn’t hold up in the context of layoffs. If a company decides to lay off, for instance, 40 employees, German law doesn’t prevent this. Instead, the law enforces a social scoring system to determine who is affected, prioritizing the protection of the most vulnerable employees, such as those with children. In this sense, when it comes to layoffs, the difference between Germany and the US is minimal.
The author decries how he was laid off despite his contribution then - without a hint of irony - says Germany isn't as safe for employees as most people think because layoffs are legally required to take into account information completely disconnected from your contributions at work.
Of course if you have legal structures that make it harder to fire people based on what they do outside of work, you will be forced to lay off people you otherwise wouldn't.
What are the odds the author got laid off despite his contributions precisely because somebody who earned more than him and did less couldn't be fired because they happened to have children? In the US it would be approximately zero. Even if the person picking names knows you have kids - but they don't because they're usually 3-4 levels above you - they have to justify the names to their boss and "J. Doe just had their second kid so let's keep them around until next year" will absolutely not fly.