> The result is the worst of both worlds. European engineers now face US-level job insecurity with European-level compensation and limited mobility.

Firing people in most of Europe is still not as easy as it is in the US.

The opposite is also true, it's not that easy to leave your employer and you have to give 1/3/6 months notice before leaving, depending on your role/seniority/contract.

Sometimes companies even make you sign 12 months notice contracts clause where they pay you a fixed monthly bonus but you can't leave without giving a 12 months notice, my SO has signed one.

▲

direwolf20 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Indeed. It's not impossible to lay off people in Europe but they can't just say "you're fired!". There's a process and it costs time and perhaps 3 to 6 months of salary and you have to prove the layoff is needed. The business is incentivized to reduce hiring and find other work for the employee to do, instead.

	▲	roncesvalles 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		To be fair, "you're fired!" doesn't happen in the US tech industry either. Even for performance-based firings, the employee almost always gets a few months of salary and garden leave in exchange for a release of claims. One of the positive effects of America being an overly litigious society. Unemployment insurance also kicks in.

▲

carlosjobim 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> This is just false, firing people in most of Europe is still not easy.

Down sizing is a perfectly legal reason to fire people in Europe, and it happens all the time when big companies do mass firings. The difficult part is getting to choose which individuals to fire.

	▲	epolanski 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		1. Most of Europe make it hard to do layoffs and most countries have different systems to prevent mass layoffs (including a state contribution to the salary, the Italian Cassa Integrazione is an example). Down sizing needs to demonstrate that you need real reasons for it, which implies demonstrating financial issues and lack of work and inability to reassign/retrain to different roles. Not easy. 2. American companies find every time that doing layoffs is very hard for them in Europe. Most recently Amazon, which, unable to lay off their people in Milan went through secondary tactics like demanding Return To Office (from people that signed hybrid or fully remote contracts) and other tactics involving mobbing or generous severance packages (up to 1 year in salary). Still, if the worker said no it was no.