That's not 'no reason'. Even for places that have pro-employee workplace laws there's often provisions for getting rid of employees who can't do what you pay them to do.
There are different cases on "not able to afford".
In Germany cases where companies truly cannot afford the person the following rules apply:
1. there is absolutely no way for the person to conduct different work inside the company
2. the company needs to choose those that can more easily afford to be laid off. (employment duration, young, single etc)
3. the place of work has to permanently be gone
Beforehand, the company has to talk to the workers council though so they can possibly find solutions to the problem without having to fire people.
It's not like that here (Australian), where you can lay someone off but it's not as simple as at will.
Simplifying a bit, you have to have attempted to help the employee meet standards, or find a suitable position. Also, if the employee develops problrns like alcohol abuse you have to attempt to get them to sort it out.
> the employee develops problrns like alcohol abuse you have to attempt to get them to sort it out.
that seems to be beyond what an employer should have to bear. If an employee develops problems, it doesn't make sense for an employer to help them (unless it's from their job - e.g., a wine taster getting addicted to alcohol). They aint running a charity!
They aint running a charity, but they are running inside the society that these laws are trying to protect. As such they have to do their part. What that part is most countries define differently. Australia apparently defines it as seen above.
Ah yes, good point, of course there are exceptions and different circumstances for various industries and levels of employment or what have you.
My comment was intended in the context of a regular employee in the scope of "unfair dismissal"[1] which you may have a claim to if you believe your dismissal was "harsh, unjust or unreasonable manner." Slightly different rules for small businesses under 15 employees etc.
I found it weird that a lot of people in Germany are expected to work the first 2~3 days for free, as like a trial. Is that common? I knew people who had to do that for Subway.
Most likely illegal. Its only legal if the workplace is not making you do actual work and is only keeping you there to observe. (and you can come and go as you like)
By that token, if being laid off is a terrible hardship for an employee, wouldn't one say that they should have made better financial decisions (eg, saving more)?
So why do you think that anyone is entitled to have the rest of the world take care of them? Is nobody responsible for the outcome of their own actions in your worldview? Why is there no onus on individuals to save and take responsibility for their own financial well-being?
I don't see why you think being a libertarian or not has anything to do with anything, by the way.
No one is "forcing" you to keep an employee on pay roll. Just be reasonable and give them 4-6 weeks notice of termination of employment, with a valid reason of dismissal.
Yes, that's part of it. It's a bit of a double-edged sword, but when it's easy to fire people, it also makes it a lot easier to hire them, because there is less of a risk when you make a mistake or need to change direction of your business.
While it's an upheaval to be sure, the vast majority of these laid-off employees have in-demand skills in a growing industry. Who I really feel for is people who get laid off in shrinking industries, where it's basically a game of musical chairs and there are fewer seats each round.
No, it's because the companies aren't encumbered with a million layers of bureaucracy and regulation ensuring every single employee has every single possible safety net in the world preventing every single type of failure known.
Sure that must be the only reason, no-one would think of ever creating a company in socialist Europe. Having access to a huge, uniform market must not factor into this at all. Or any 100 other good reasons you're ignoring from a complex spectrum; no it must be the one and only one that fits your narrative.
Many great companies are started overseas. Many great companies are also started in America. To suggest there is a correlation between startup success rate and at will employment would require, by golly, empirical data.
A concept that is utterly foreign and bizarre to most other people in Western countries, including myself in New Zealand.
Great, now you know one reason that Americans prefer America to other countries. A lot of us are quite happy with the "at will" rules that are common in the US. Note, however, that these rules are largely at the state, not federal, level, and not all state are "at will".
I worked in NZ for three years. The company I worked for rarely had redundancies. But we did have two classes of people who left. People who got a big card and gave a speech at weekly drinks, and people who just left during the day and said "goodbye" to everyone on their teams.
Once one of the former said goodbye after all the announcements after work drinks. It was really awkward.
We had a guy on my team just tell us "today is my last day," out of nowhere. He was in the director's office earlier.
We suspected these people were given some money and told to quit, rather than keep them on. It was usually people who turned out to not really be great engineers and I think they just wanted to get rid of them without having to fire them.
I also worked in Australia for a year. My first day on the job, my hiring manager, who had been with the company for six years, was made redundant.
Personally I prefer the Danish idea of "Flexicurity", where it's easy to hire and easy to fire, but there are strong welfare protections guaranteed by the state if you do end up unemployed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity
How is that sad? I love the fact that I can quit my job and go take another job at any time. If the flip-side of that coin is that I can be fired at any time, then so be it.
What, you think having a family means you want to be stuck in the same boring job for the rest of your life? Or that you won't still want to seek higher pay down the road? What if you have another kid? Job flexibility could come in handy...
So? We should end at-will employment so a few people don't have to experience the occasional "stressful and demoralizing experience"? I'm not buying it. Nobody said life was all sunshine and rainbows...
Works well when it's easy to find a job, doesn't work well when you get fired for no reason and you were working in a profession where you don't just get a job the next week.
Also there are more possibilities to employment than American "any time for any reason" and European "at least a month either way". In Canada you have to have a justified cause to fire people or just give notice, and for quitting you customarily give 2 weeks notice (I'm not even sure if you're legally bound to).
Works well when it's easy to find a job, doesn't work well when you get fired for no reason and you were working in a profession where you don't just get a job the next week.
Isn't putting aside savings to account for possible interruptions in employment simply prudent management of one's personal finances?
Most likely these people will get a decent severance package, in startups when they have layoffs often you're laid off being owed salary even though the salary may be 80% below market rate and you could be laid off simply to save money at the end of the project, engineers used to be precious back when everything required its own custom apache c module but these days engineers are very much disposible.
