Still losing jobs, France to increase the cost of firing

[lutzj]

Spoiler:

PARIS (Reuters) - France's new Socialist government is planning to ramp up the cost of laying off workers for companies in the coming months, its labour minister said on Thursday after data showed the jobless rate hit the highest level this century at 10 percent.

President Francois Hollande rode to power in a presidential runoff last month on a promise to tackle soaring unemployment, which has reached the highest level since 1999.

Polls regularly show unemployment ranking among the French's top concerns, adding pressure on Hollande as his Socialist Party seeks a majority in parliament in a two-round legislative election on June 10 and 17.

The push to make firing more difficult in France, where making layoffs is already tightly regulated and often costly for employers, contrasts with moves under way in other euro zone countries such as Italy and Spain to make job cuts easier.

With the economy stalling, Labour Minister Michel Sapin said urgent measures were needed against unemployment and that he aimed to put forward legislation after the summer break.

"The main idea is to make layoffs so expensive for companies that it's not worth it," Sapin said in an interview with France Info radio.

"It's not a question of sanctions, but workers have to have compensation at the right level," he said.

THE 10-PERCENT THRESHOLD

Sapin, a former finance minister and long-time friend of Hollande, said the government could not stand by idly as some companies cut workers just to improve profitability and boost their dividends to shareholders.

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg is also planning legislation that would force companies to sell plants they want to get rid of at market prices to avoid closures and job losses.

The government and unions are bracing for a wave of layoffs after the legislative election, fearing companies have put off job cuts until after the election period.

Data from the INSEE statistics institute showed on Thursday that France's jobless rate hit the psychologically important threshold of 10 percent in the first quarter of the year.

Unemployment in France has now risen even higher than in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, rising from 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 to the highest level since the third quarter of 1999.

The rate for mainland France rose to 9.6 percent from 9.3 percent in the final three months of 2011 also to hit its highest level since the third quarter of 1999.

Sapin said in an interview with Les Echos business daily that the budget for state-aided jobs needed to be raised, or else 112,000 jobs on such contracts could be put at risk in the second half of the year.

"That would be extremely harmful at a time when all resources need to be mobilised against unemployment," he said, adding that the state-run jobs agency also needed more funds.

However, Hollande's government is facing growing pressure from the European Commission and ratings agencies to cut spending in order to meet public deficit targets as promised.

With the legislative election looming, the government is being careful not to spell out how it will keep its deficit-reduction plans on track until an independent audit of the public finances is handed in after the race.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)

Linkage: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE8560BH20120607


My guess is that we'll see even more intense layoffs in the weeks before this comes into effect.

[Ghostbear]

I'm curious as to what, specifically, is being done to make firing people more expensive? More severance pay? More paper work? Some form of "fine"? Or something else entirely... It's really hard to make an evaluation of what I think about this with just the basic idea known.

It's interesting just how much difference there is between what is feasible to enact as law in France and the US.

[folkhero]

My guess is that we'll see even more intense layoffs in the weeks before this comes into effect.

And then companies will be even more hesitant to hire new employees, especially young workers with unproven track records.

[Derek]

Unemployment up? Better make it harder to hire new employees.

[Tirian]

My guess is that we'll see even more intense layoffs in the weeks before this comes into effect.

And then companies will be even more hesitant to hire new employees, especially young workers with unproven track records.

Yeah. I wonder how much of the labor contraction is because of corporations squeezing profits like Hollande says and how much is because of, you know, recession. If a company has eight employees but only needs five (for whatever reason), it seems like a waste of effort to mandate that those three employees should keep on clocking in to do no work. If a lack of flexibility pushes companies into insolvency, that would suck for all eight employees and their customers and creditors. *shrug*

I suppose if I were in charge of a socialist government, I'd rather put those three people in a one-year training program for the jobs that will be in demand a year from now and have those companies pay a pre-tax for a well-trained job base.

[Ormurinn]

My guess is that we'll see even more intense layoffs in the weeks before this comes into effect.

And then companies will be even more hesitant to hire new employees, especially young workers with unproven track records.

Yeah. I wonder how much of the labor contraction is because of corporations squeezing profits like Hollande says and how much is because of, you know, recession. If a company has eight employees but only needs five (for whatever reason), it seems like a waste of effort to mandate that those three employees should keep on clocking in to do no work. If a lack of flexibility pushes companies into insolvency, that would suck for all eight employees and their customers and creditors. *shrug*

I suppose if I were in charge of a socialist government, I'd rather put those three people in a one-year training program for the jobs that will be in demand a year from now and have those companies pay a pre-tax for a well-trained job base.

You could even try actually, y'know, being socialist, and assign those companies to worker organisations, and state assets to co-operatives.

Your solution is a good one, and workable. It annoys me when run of the mill tax-and-spend top down bureaucratic management initiatives get described as socialist though. Not because socialism is my personal ideology, just because I appreciate accurate apellations.

Again, not to denigrate your suggestion. It's a good one.

[Zamfir]

I suppose if I were in charge of a socialist government, I'd rather put those three people in a one-year training program for the jobs that will be in demand a year from now and have those companies pay a pre-tax for a well-trained job base.

Job retraining is not as easy as it looks on paper. Seriously, if unemployment was a matter of a bit of school, why would it still exist?

[Dark567]

I'm no big fan of Rand, but shit like this makes me think that Atlas Shrugged really does have lessons for the real world... Acting like the economy is some static machine instead of an dynamic organic set of process that involve creative destruction that requires flexible labor markets, will certainly hurt things more in the long run.

[Tirian]

I suppose if I were in charge of a socialist government, I'd rather put those three people in a one-year training program for the jobs that will be in demand a year from now and have those companies pay a pre-tax for a well-trained job base.

Job retraining is not as easy as it looks on paper. Seriously, if unemployment was a matter of a bit of school, why would it still exist?

I confess that I don't know much about France. But I would suggest the reason that it doesn't work very well in the United States in this day and age is because we expect the unemployed person (with the support of government programs) to bear all of the training costs with no guarantee of employment and that's an unreasonably large risk for someone on the ropes. This didn't used to be the case, of course. Neither of my parents had college degrees, but they were smart dedicated people who were hired for their potential for a modest wage and groomed to be the sorts of people that provided full value to their companies. I suppose that must have cut into shareholder returns, since now employers with hiring needs (who are the only ones in the economy with cash these days) demand more visas to hire foreign workers instead of growing the resources at home.

I work with a state agency that does vocational training, and I will agree that it's harder than it looks on paper. But it does work at getting people off of public assistance and paying into the pool and it helps societally-critical job shortages. If there is one thing I would change about it, though, it would be to shift some of the costs off the taxpayer and onto the corporations that are directly benefiting from full employment.

[paulisa]

I'm no big fan of Rand, but shit like this makes me think that Atlas Shrugged really does have lessons for the real world... Acting like the economy is some static machine instead of an dynamic organic set of process that involve creative destruction that requires flexible labor markets, will certainly hurt things more in the long run.

My thoughts exactly

The interests of the employees and employers are not as different as is often presented, but sometimes there are conflicts. In these cases the state can/should step in and regulate, but this regulation must be seen as arbitrary and definitely not set in stone. If the regulation prooves too negative for one side or the other, there should be little hesitation to change it.

In this case, great barriers to firing are also barriers to employment. This is already evident where laws about employing disabled people exist and make it very hard to fire someone and shortens the "trial period" before the protection is in place. These laws have led to many disabled people not requesting their status, even if it would involve unconnected rights such as better parking spaces or tax-deductible car-modifications, because they would have trouble finding a job.

[Diadem]

I suppose if I were in charge of a socialist government, I'd rather put those three people in a one-year training program for the jobs that will be in demand a year from now and have those companies pay a pre-tax for a well-trained job base.

You could even try actually, y'know, being socialist, and assign those companies to worker organisations, and state assets to co-operatives.

Your solution is a good one, and workable. It annoys me when run of the mill tax-and-spend top down bureaucratic management initiatives get described as socialist though. Not because socialism is my personal ideology, just because I appreciate accurate apellations.

1) Tirian did not describe his proposal as socialist.
2) Just because a policy is not exclusively socialist doesn't mean a socialist couldn't endorse it.
3) That being said, Tirian's proposal actually fits very well into general socialist thinking.
4) Your proposal doesn't.
5) Go look up socialism in a dictionary.
6) Actually, don't. The first two internet dictionaries I tried got their definitions shockingly wrong. So I guess you can be forgiven for getting it wrong as well. But to set the record straight: Socialism is not equal to communism.

[Ormurinn]

I suppose if I were in charge of a socialist government, I'd rather put those three people in a one-year training program for the jobs that will be in demand a year from now and have those companies pay a pre-tax for a well-trained job base.

You could even try actually, y'know, being socialist, and assign those companies to worker organisations, and state assets to co-operatives.

Your solution is a good one, and workable. It annoys me when run of the mill tax-and-spend top down bureaucratic management initiatives get described as socialist though. Not because socialism is my personal ideology, just because I appreciate accurate apellations.

1) Tirian did not describe his proposal as socialist.
2) Just because a policy is not exclusively socialist doesn't mean a socialist couldn't endorse it.
3) That being said, Tirian's proposal actually fits very well into general socialist thinking.
4) Your proposal doesn't.
5) Go look up socialism in a dictionary.
6) Actually, don't. The first two internet dictionaries I tried got their definitions shockingly wrong. So I guess you can be forgiven for getting it wrong as well. But to set the record straight: Socialism is not equal to communism.

1) Tirian prefaced with "If i were in charge of a socialist government.." so it isn't unreasonable to infer that he meant to suggest that his proposal was more socialist than the one on offer.
2) True, however see point 1. I did take pains to make clear I thought it was a good proposal.
3)It fits well into general left-wing theory, but it has little to do with socialism. It's a tax-and-spend policy.
4) My proposal was that a socialist would advocate for common ownership of the means of production. Which is the point of socialism.
5) I'm aware of the definition of socialism..
6) From wiki,:

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises.

Mirriam Webster:

any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

All I said was that it's not particularly socialist to advance a policy which bears none of the hallmarks of the socialist economic system.

[Tirian]

All I said was that it's not particularly socialist to advance a policy which bears none of the hallmarks of the socialist economic system.

I don't think it's a big fat deal, but socialism is both an economic theory and a political theory, and I imagine you noticed that Wikipedia goes on to say that the political theory of socialism is quite broad and does not necessarily require an unambiguous drive towards economic socialism. (Indeed, it doesn't seem to me that Hollande's Socialist Party is particularly socialist in that regard.) You might not appreciate that democratic socialism stole your word to refer to large state-mandated checks on the free market, but there you go.

[CorruptUser]

Wouldn't it just be easier to simply let the companies fire as much as they like, and just raise taxes and give a bare minimum to everyone? Quite sure that taxes have less of a deadweight loss than forcing companies to employ people at a loss.

I never understood the whole "right to a job" thing. If something is a right, the obligation to protect or (assuming positive rights) provide it lies with the government, not individuals in the private sector.

[Diadem]

1) Tirian prefaced with "If i were in charge of a socialist government.." so it isn't unreasonable to infer that he meant to suggest that his proposal was more socialist than the one on offer.
2) True, however see point 1. I did take pains to make clear I thought it was a good proposal.

Well, the current French government is a socialist government. Tirian was basically saying: "If I were them". And like I said, his proposal fits very well into general socialist thinking.

3)It fits well into general left-wing theory, but it has little to do with socialism. It's a tax-and-spend policy.
4) My proposal was that a socialist would advocate for common ownership of the means of production. Which is the point of socialism.
5) I'm aware of the definition of socialism..

Sorry, but clearly you are not.

Socialism is a broad term. What you describe falls under socialism, true, but it's a particular flavour that went out of vogue many decades ago, and is more commonly referred to as communism. When people use the term socialism while talking about European politics, it is not what they mean. Socialism is about redistributing wealth, providing a social safety net, and keeping the free market tightly regulated.

[Dark567]

Socialism is a broad term. What you describe falls under socialism, true, but it's a particular flavour that went out of vogue many decades ago, and is more commonly referred to as communism. When people use the term socialism while talking about European politics, it is not what they mean. Socialism is about redistributing wealth, providing a social safety net, and keeping the free market tightly regulated.

That hardly seems like socialism to me. Even my understanding of market socialism is that you still have some public, state, common or cooperative form of owning capital, but than allowing markets to price things. The key part of socialism is some non-capitalistic form of ownership. Granted at this point I don't think most of the socialist parties in Europe even completely fit that; maybe it could be said that they are mostly socialist, with some capitalism thrown in. Political parties positions don't fit the more perfect ideological definitions, as they generally need to work in the real world and make sacrifices of ideologies to get votes.

Communism, as a specific form, advocates state ownership, central planning and single party rule as opposed to Democratic socialism which advocates democratic rule, market planning, and worker's cooperatives and non-state(but also non-capitalistic) ownership.

[aoeu]

forcing companies to employ people at a loss

At less than maximum profit would be a more accurate way to put it.

[Derek]

forcing companies to employ people at a loss

At less than maximum profit would be a more accurate way to put it.

Which is called a loss. If employing an additional employee reduces my profits, then that employee is a loss to me.

[Princess Marzipan]

Too bad, you can suffer some economic hardship like *everybody else* then.

[Zamfir]

Nonono, no hardship for job creators!

[Princess Marzipan]

job creators!

[Adacore]

If employing an additional employee reduces my profits, then that employee is a loss to me.

Only if your sole aim as an employer is to make the most profit. Perhaps your aim as an employer is to give the best quality of life to the most people? You'd do that by trying to keep your company profitable while employing as many people as you can. Sometimes, yes, you want to maximise profits so that you can reinvest in the longer term and grow the business in order to employ more people, but normally absolute maximised profits isn't optimal if your goal is a compromise between creating the most man-hours of employment possible and providing a valuable, reasonably priced product.

This is a probably a much rarer outlook now than it used to be, but a hundred years ago or so a lot of major entrepreneurs cared just as much about the quality of life their employees were getting as they did about maximising the bottom line. Just look at a company like Cadburys.

[Ormurinn]

3)It fits well into general left-wing theory, but it has little to do with socialism. It's a tax-and-spend policy.
4) My proposal was that a socialist would advocate for common ownership of the means of production. Which is the point of socialism.
5) I'm aware of the definition of socialism..

Sorry, but clearly you are not.

Socialism is a broad term. What you describe falls under socialism, true, but it's a particular flavour that went out of vogue many decades ago, and is more commonly referred to as communism. When people use the term socialism while talking about European politics, it is not what they mean. Socialism is about redistributing wealth, providing a social safety net, and keeping the free market tightly regulated.

What? Im aware that in common usage "Socialism" and "Capitalism with more taxes" seem to be synonymous, thats what I was complaining about in the first post. What I'm referring to is socialism by the way - under the actualk definition of socialism. It's not called communism, it can be distinguished from it by the presence of a state, the continuance of renumeration based on the value of labour, and the continued existence of social classes. I guess you can be forgiven for getting this wrong though;

The exact definition of communism varies, and it is often mistakenly, in general political discourse, used interchangeably with socialism

[folkhero]

If employing an additional employee reduces my profits, then that employee is a loss to me.

Only if your sole aim as an employer is to make the most profit. Perhaps your aim as an employer is to give the best quality of life to the most people? You'd do that by trying to keep your company profitable while employing as many people as you can. Sometimes, yes, you want to maximise profits so that you can reinvest in the longer term and grow the business in order to employ more people, but normally absolute maximised profits isn't optimal if your goal is a compromise between creating the most man-hours of employment possible and providing a valuable, reasonably priced product.

This is a probably a much rarer outlook now than it used to be, but a hundred years ago or so a lot of major entrepreneurs cared just as much about the quality of life their employees were getting as they did about maximising the bottom line. Just look at a company like Cadburys.

So, are you willing to get rid of your washer and dryer so you can employ someone washing your clothes on a washboard over a tub of water? Are you willing to give up your music collection so that you can employ some artists to play you live music? Are you willing to give up word processors so you can employ a secretary to dictate your thoughts into type?

Trying to maximize the man hours it takes to do something is literally the opposite of technology. Don't mind the rest of the world speeding past you and the rest of the Luddites.

[Zamfir]

folkhero, that's a ridiculous analogy. We're talking here about people who have already worked for a company for many years, not made-up jobs. And the protections don't mean you can't fire someone, they mean that if you want to fire someone who who has worked for you for a long time, you have to fork over some money. Which you should be easily willing to do, if you are sure the employee won't fill any productive role in your company anymore.

Let's not forget, getting fired comes at a real cost to the employee. Especially if the employee has been working in a job for a long time. They have arranged their house location to the job (and associated social network), their tranportation choices, their partner's job and career choices. They will have to make large changes to their life and face a period of high uncertainty, both strictly financially and more in general.

Sometimes that just has to happen anyway, if the job really has no future anymore and the company really cannot accomodate the employee in some other role. But it can't hurt to prod companies to look really hard if they won't need that employee again in a year, or if they really have no other place for them. Because the company won't be facing the pain of the fired employee, they'll tend to fire more easily than would be best.

[PeterCai]

Nonono, no hardship for job creators!

There are news stories where this line is called for, but I don't think this is one of them. The opposition's view is completely understandable and valid in this case, imo.

[Zamfir]

To be honest, I don't know if it's called for. My knowledge of French job protection legislation is rather vague. As is, AFAICT, the knowledge of most other foreigners who comment on it, even in newspapers. It might be crazy, it might be sensible, but it sure acts as a red cloth to some people.

The weird thing is, the UK is the example that France apparently should have followed, according to decades of the Economist. But its job market has reacted pretty much the same to the crisis as in France. UK unemployment started before the crisis at about 2.5% below French unemployment, it's now about 1.8% lower, in both cases holding basically steady since early 2009.

So in the long run, that suggests some potential gains for France when it come to unemployment, presumably at the cost of the UKs somewhat higher poverty rates. But in dealing with the economic crisis, there doesn't seem to be any effect. France's job protection is not better at keeping people in jobs, Britain's reforms are not better at creating new jobs.

It seems to me that people are just using the crisis to push for whatever they wanted anyway. More job protection, less job protection, higher deficits, lower deficits, trade deficits, trade surpluses, more cats, more dogs, you'll find someone with an economics degree to explain how it it should help.

In the mean time, Spain is the country to worry about. France's has seen unemployment higher than this and can pull through.

[nitePhyyre]

Is this a semi-workable solution to the problem?

Pass a law banning laying off people if:
A) They are going to be replaced
B) Their workload is added to other employees

Make the fine big (ex: 10x the laid off employee's salary) and split it 1/3 to the laid off employee, 1/3 to the whistle blower, and 1/3 to the government.

[CorruptUser]

forcing companies to employ people at a loss

At less than maximum profit would be a more accurate way to put it.

Far less than maximum, to the point that it's negative. If X is worth $50,000 and you pay $0, your profit is maximized, but even I don't want that. Pay people close to what they are worth, in part because it does maximize total wealth due to the efficiency wage; employee X may be worth $20,000 if you only pay him $10,000, but if you pay him $30,000 he might work harder and be worth $45,000.

Let's say employee X increases the wealth at company A by $15,000, no sane company would pay X more than $15,000. Why pay $20,000 for something worth $15,000 for a $5000 loss? You might say 'well the employee gains that extra $5000 so it all evens out', which it would, if economics wasn't a cold mistress. If all companies have to hire people at losses, eventually the numbers change until they aren't losses (i.e., inflation or deflation), and the $20,000 X was paid can only buy what used to be $15,000 worth of goods. If you really want to help X, progressive (and enforced) taxation would be far superior; long story short it increases the percentage of wealth/income the lower incomes get, unlike minimum wages which are undone by the inflation they cause.

Replacing workers is harder than most people think. Oh sure, maybe Y or Z would be worth $20,000, but they could also be worth $10,000 or possible worth -$500,000 (yes employees can have negative worth; remember that drunken captain that capsized the Carnival ship?). Turnover is extremely bad for a company, especially when it comes to things involving trust, so most companies try to avoid it.

The problems lie where X is actually worth $60,000, but is only being paid $25,000. X doesn't know how much he's really worth, so company A can demean him until he thinks he isn't even worth that $25,000. That is the exploitation people are wary of. An actual example of this would be the racism of the 1930s; keep telling your black workers that they are less productive, convince everyone that it's true, and get away with paying them 2/3 the wages. Bonus points if they are you best workers.

[Zamfir]

Make the fine big (ex: 10x the laid off employee's salary) and split it 1/3 to the laid off employee, 1/3 to the whistle blower, and 1/3 to the government.

The Dutch system is that the employers can pay roughly one month of salary for every year the employer worked for them (less for young people, more for old people), and then they can usually fire someone unless something is really off. A correction factor can be applied if the employer brings extra evidence, which becomes zero if the employer can show the employee did their work unacceptably bad, for example.

If a company has evidence that it is in economic problems, they can ask for "firing permits". A firing permits reverts the burden of evidence: it's now up to the employee to start a court case to prove their dismissal was on false grounds. Usually the agency in charge of the permits will require some extra effort from the company, like some months of delay to allow workers to look for different jobs, or a employer-paid program to help find other jobs.

I don't know how it works exactly in France, though I have heard that the principles are not that different. Though it might be less flexible in the "fork over enough cash and you can fire anyway" department.

[Arrian]

This is a probably a much rarer outlook now than it used to be, but a hundred years ago or so a lot of major entrepreneurs cared just as much about the quality of life their employees were getting as they did about maximising the bottom line. Just look at a company like Cadburys.

If it is true that there used to be a higher percentage of companies that focused more on their employees' wellbeing than profit, or more than companies do now, isn't that pretty good evidence against the competitiveness of that strategy? If caring about your employees gave you an edge, or at least didn't put you at a disadvantage, then the proportion of companies that cared more about their employees than profits should stay pretty constant. If it's not competitive, then caring about your employees puts your company at risk of going out of business, which in turn puts all of your employees at risk.

Also, employees and customers aren't the only people in the equation. You also have to think about the investors: Without investors, you've got a lot harder time improving your capital, without improving capital you have a hard time growing or even staying competitive. How do you take care of your investors? Maximize profits.

But in reality, I think you're looking at history through rose colored glasses. I don't think there was a larger proportion of companies who cared more about their employees a century ago than today. For every Cadbury's example, I can give you an industry-wide counter example like the canning industry, coal mining, or tailoring. Today, at least in America, I think companies tend to treat their workers better than you realize. After all, in order to retain good people you either have to pay them obscenely well to put up with a bad situation, or pay them average and treat them well, and treating them well is usually cheaper.

Furthermore, realize that "companies" generally don't fire people, "managers" have to make individual decisions and that certainly has an effect. Individuals, when dealing with individuals, already take into account the impact that their decisions will have. (Of course, not universally and not in the same way, but since the people who are making decisions that will negatively affect individuals they know personally, they do tend to take the impact of their decisions seriously. The managers certainly know who they're firing much better than a politician or labor regulator knows from statistical abstracts.)

To be honest, I don't know if it's called for. My knowledge of French job protection legislation is rather vague. As is, AFAICT, the knowledge of most other foreigners who comment on it, even in newspapers. It might be crazy, it might be sensible, but it sure acts as a red cloth to some people.

I'm not very familiar with the French system, but from what I've heard, the theory behind the system dates back to the Revolution and has some serious impacts on the structure of the economy:

Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.

Of course, different nations have different socio-economic environments and priorities. Americans enjoy higher wages and generally lower unemployment, French enjoy more job security and greater preservation of history and culture. They are the result of tradeoffs that each nation has made.

[CorruptUser]

The Dutch system is that the employers can pay roughly one month of salary for every year the employer worked for them (less for young people, more for old people), and then they can usually fire someone unless something is really off. A correction factor can be applied if the employer brings extra evidence, which becomes zero if the employer can show the employee did their work unacceptably bad, for example.

I like that system. The result is that people get paid ~12/13 of what they would've otherwise, but it does build up an incentive to reduce turnover without scaring away prospective employers.

[Zamfir]

Trust me, enough people don't like it. If Bloomberg wants to write an article like the one above, they will have no problem lining up businessmen who swear they don't move jobs to Romania because of the low wages, but because of the red tape. I bet that if you want to write an article about the heavy-handed job protection laws in the US, you would have no problem finding similar quotes either.

[KestrelLowing]

A big thing with the french, I understand, is that they work a lot fewer hours than typical USians do. (I believe the standard is a 35 hour week?) So my guess is that more french companies are laying people off because they realize that if they asked for the same amount of work as Americans or say the Germans, they could do more without having to pay benefits for more employees.

I also agree with the rose colored glasses look on how companies treated employees. As far back as you can look, unskilled employees haven't been treated very nicely, but as you go up the rung on the 'skills' ladder, employees get treated better and better. Little things like bagels once a month, free fountain drinks, or flex time are very important now of days to keep skilled employees. Just look at Google - they're 'the place' to work, not just because they're a growing company, but because of all the perks and the specific culture. So it's not so much the time, just the skill of the employee.

[Cleverbeans]

As far back as you can look, unskilled employees haven't been treated very nicely, but as you go up the rung on the 'skills' ladder, employees get treated better and better.

The trouble with the 'skills' ladder is that the value the job provides may not be related to the skill required to do it. For example garbage collection requires virtually no skill, but they play an indispensable role in modern urban areas. Also, it is not uncommon for unskilled labour in the Alberta oil patch to clear $200k/year not because their job is hard, but because they are willing to work long hours in harsh, dangerous conditions and can pass a drug test.

I do not however share your view on the nature of the owner/employee relationship. The idea of viewing an employee as strictly an asset or liability obscures the fact that they are another rational agent, indeed a human being who deserves independent consideration. I view the idea of terminating an employee due to overall economic hardship of the company as a form of risk transfer, where the owner passes the consequences of their decisions onto the staff. It seems to me that this should be handled by first establishing financial transparency with the workers, then trying to achieve a democratic solution to the problem. Creating systemic distrust between ownership and management, and then management with workers creates a fundamentally dysfunctional social structure.

Of course, the secondary problems related to very human way we choose who to lay off or fire. All sorts of bigotry and social stigmatism creep up, as well as financial incentive lead ownership to make unethical choices. I have known countless individuals who have been laid off and fired because they were Christian, sick, pregnant, obviously deformed, mentally-ill, black, Asian, or homosexual. The deeply one-sided relationship between management and workers is a pretty terrible thing, and it's reasonable to ask for significant protections and recourse against that.

[Ormurinn]

A big thing with the french, I understand, is that they work a lot fewer hours than typical USians do. (I believe the standard is a 35 hour week?) So my guess is that more french companies are laying people off because they realize that if they asked for the same amount of work as Americans or say the Germans, they could do more without having to pay benefits for more employees.

Are the GDP per capita figures for Germany and the U.S comparable to france? Theres not a linear relationship between hours worked and productivity, and in fact, there have been studies showing that once you exceed a 40-hour workweek productivity actually drops. I can source if you like.

[Dark567]

Are the GDP per capita figures for Germany and the U.S comparable to france? Theres not a linear relationship between hours worked and productivity, and in fact, there have been studies showing that once you exceed a 40-hour workweek productivity actually drops. I can source if you like.

US GDP per Capita(adjusted for purchasing power): $48,000
Germany GDP per Capita(adjusted for purchasing power): $37,800
France GDP per Capita(adjusted for purchasing power): $35,100

Please show those studies, because its virtually impossible for GDP per capita to drop by working more(all other factors being equal), what could drop(and probably does) is GDP per capita per hour. But those are two very different things.

[Ormurinn]

Are the GDP per capita figures for Germany and the U.S comparable to france? Theres not a linear relationship between hours worked and productivity, and in fact, there have been studies showing that once you exceed a 40-hour workweek productivity actually drops. I can source if you like.

US GDP per Capita(adjusted for purchasing power): $48,000
Germany GDP per Capita(adjusted for purchasing power): $37,800
France GDP per Capita(adjusted for purchasing power): $35,100

Please show those studies, because its virtually impossible for GDP per capita to drop by working more(all other factors being equal), what could drop(and probably does) is GDP per capita per hour. But those are two very different things.

Sourced Article - http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_b ... singleton/

[Ghostbear]

Please show those studies, because its virtually impossible for GDP per capita to drop by working more(all other factors being equal), what could drop(and probably does) is GDP per capita per hour. But those are two very different things.

It is extremely possible for having individuals working more hours to result in a decrease in GDP. If bumping somebody up to 80 hours a week causes the average output of each of their hours to be less than 0.5 an hour of what it'd be in a 40 hour work week, then you are reducing productivity, and through that, GDP.

[CorruptUser]

Are you seriously going to claim that managers would ever overwork their employees (and pay overtime) to the point where they are producing less than what they would've normally produced? If that's the case, replace the managers.