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Comment by tasubotadas | Hacker News Reader

I have heard to social security laws are strict in France, and thus, after hiring an employee, you are basically stuck with them and can't fire.

Could you elaborate on that? How true is the statement above?

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Not true, although it's more complicated than in the US.

You can't fire someone at will like in the US, you need to justify the decision. Which takes some time and paperwork. Also, it used to be risky as the fired employee could sue and ask for damage, with no legal cap. The later has changed. So you can fire people, I've seen it done a few times, if you have a competent HR it's perfectly doable. You will need to document why and have some justification, and be ready to present your case if challenged.

Also, it's possible to let someone go my mutual agreement, with the employee keeping their unemployment benefit (there are limits to prevent abuse). It also eases things when both sides agree there's a mismatch, which often happen.

So it's definitely not as fluid as in the US, but not stuck as some people would let you know. You tend to be more cautious about the hiring for sure.

Also after hiring you have a trial period that can last up to 8 months during which you can fire at will (with a 1 month notice ).

It's definitely a lot harder than in the USA. As a consequence companies often opt not to hire engineers directly if they want more flexibility but instead go through third party companies to contract developers (the infamous "SSII"). It's more expensive but you can get rid of them basically whenever you want.

I generally in favor of the French model (over, say, the American one) but I do think that in this case it's probably a bit overprotective for certain more privileged jobs. A software developer these days shouldn't have too much trouble finding a new job if they get fired, I wouldn't mind trading some of that social security for higher pay for instance.

It is mostly true. There is more flexibility for smaller companies, but generally you need to justify firing someone and courts tend to protect employees more.

The issue in France is that you basically have tons of small companies that can have exemptions on things like that, taxes, etc. and a few very large companies that can deal with that, but almost nothing in between. Running a 500-employee company in France is basically hell, you get crap from everywhere.

Your statement is mostly true, but you can fire someone for economic reasons.

Still, most startups rely on armies of unpaid interns as a workaround.

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