A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work

> The Myth of Job Security in Germany

> [...] 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.

This is not true, and an over simplification.

Yes, you can always technically layoff in Germany, but it might not hold in court. Most people have legal insurance (mine is ~€300/y) which is tax deductible if it has employment protection. Mine will cover costs for an employment-related lawsuit.

If you feel that your layoff is not justified, you can always sue, the judge could decide that your work contract was unlawfully cancelled, leading to the company having to re-hire you and paying your salary for every month it didn't do so. The company posting record profits could weight in your favor in front of a judge. People, especially non-native like me, don't know better, they just move-on and go c'est la vie. If you sue, win and get re-hired, you can always ask to leave for a bigger package.

For companies above a certain amount of employee (50? 75?), if a small amount of employees (I think it's 3 or 4) request it, the company must run a works council election. For any layoff (individual or mass layoff), the work council must be consulted, and has co-determination, they can basically block the layoff, this was done by Volkswagen's work council recently. [1] For large mass layoffs, companies might also have to consult with the authorities.

Last thing, the social scoring is much more complicated than "those with children." If you have 4 kids and got hired 7 months ago, you might be fired, and I, single person, might keep my job with my 15 years of tenure. Tenure, disabilities, children, ... a lot of things take part into the social scoring.

All and all, I agree with a lot of the sentiments and points of the article. But saying that, outside of social scoring, layoffs between the US and Germany are the same is simply not true. There is a reasonable job security in Germany.

[1] https://www.volkswagen-group.com/en/press-releases/agreement...

this is very interesting, thanks for sharing it! Are you aware of any story involving individuals fighting their case for a job in a tech company? Would love to read about it.

I understood the claim to be that if you are at the bottom of the social points scale then you are sufficiently vulnerable for it not to matter. That the people who really benefit from Germany's strong labour laws are those with kids, disabled people, old, etc... but not just a standard young person.

Germany is just a strange country IMO. Lots of "nice" stuff like this that sounds great but really only works for the older generation and doesn't really work for young people, who are already hugely disadvantage by the German boomerocracy (probably one of the worst boomerocracys in the world).

What’s the legal insurance called in German?

"Rechtsschutzversicherung." You want it to include "Arbeitsrechtsschutz"

I would also advise you to include defamation, in case somebody sue you for defaming them. Usually many legal insurance exclude "internet" from the protection, this means that if you post on hackernews "Hans is an idiot", and Hans sues you, you might have to pay the lawsuit yourself. These insurances usually have an "internet" options for usually ~20€/y which would protect you in this case. You can still deduct the entire amount from your taxes, as it's still technically a labour-law legal insurance.

Not in my circle. Usually, threatening to sue is enough. I know people who increased their severance package because they said that "they wanted to talk to the lawyer from their legal insurance before accepting any severance package."

Of course this doesn't work if you have a work council, usually the work-council negotiate a severance package algorithm (= fix_amount + tenure * amount), and this is usually un-negotiable. This makes sense, thanks to collective bargaining, it's most likely one the best deal you could have gotten. (Even though libertarians will flock-in and start going "How do I know, that I, as a highly performing individual couldn't have negotiate better!?! This seems unfair!")

Well, boomers are on their way out.

But why do you think that Gen X will be better ?

I'm not a lawyer, but AFAIK, age doesn't influence your social score, tenure does. If I'm a 30 year old with 10 years in the company, I will have a better score than 50-year-old you who got hired 7 months ago.

The idea is that working at a company "squeezes juice out of you", so you should not be so easily fired after a long tenure, because the company got all the rewards from your juice, but you don't have much left. You can agree or disagree, but I have to admit that there is a logic.

I don't think any generation is better than the other. They are just the biggest. If Gen X were the biggest then there would be some big political distortion in their favour instead.

And no they are not on the way out, they are still here and will be here for a long time. To the extent that Gen Xers will be better or worse, it is only because the demographic pyramid won't look quite as crazy or distorted.

I understood the logic to be instead that older people nearing retirement find it much harder to get new jobs.

And I agree there is logic to all of these things we are discussing. The problem is rather that everything is falling apart in other ways so young people get the raw end both times. Many of these older folk will be on rent controlled flats that are not available to young people, for example.

I know of a case where a company laid off a person for unjustifiable reasons. Of course the notice period was observed but the person decided to press a lawsuit and the court decided that the layoff reason was baseless. While they did not get rehired(once the moral is hit hard to go back may be), but they got awarded to 7-8 months of full salary paid. Something that probably played into the favor was that the person just recently became a father for a month after which he was handed the forced redundancy news and the observance of notice period.

According to anti-discrimination law, a ground for layoff(or not hiring) can not be tied to parenthood.

> Even though >highly paid SWE< will flock-in and start going "How do I know, that I, as a highly performing individual couldn't have negotiate better!?! This seems unfair!")

I made a correction. Also I really hate the tendency of tech workers doing everything to stay away from unionizing or collective bargaining or establishing work councils. There is this bizarre tendency that it is just somekind if conspiracy and they are able to bargain better deals. This in collective hurts the entire tech crew everywhere.

In addition, except for companies with serious economic problems, layoffs are also simply much less common in Germany, I believe.

> but not just a standard young person.

This makes sense in a way, since "standard young people" are very flexible [in Germany]. There are multiple different safety nets and ways to get money, jobs, support, and a lot of basic needs are taken care of by the social system.

Source: I'm a "standard young person" German SWE ;)

Yes it makes sense, certainly on paper, and in a world in which the older generation actually are disadvantaged by their age and younger people are not. Actually it's the other way around. Like so many things in Germany, it's just outdated and from a time when things were actually really good and everything was not falling apart. The boomer generation are the richest, have pensions we will never have, and get to pay far smaller rents than we do. I pay 3x the rent that my boomer neighbours pay for a mirror image flat across the hall.