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Comment by speedgoose | Hacker News Reader

~~Yes, because it's pretty shitty for Europe.~~

I didn't understand well, sorry.

"In many countries, the severance pay is a lump sum that increases with the employee’s tenure in the company and their wage level.

In the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain, employees with service of up to one year are entitled to severance pay (in most cases one month’s pay), while in Luxembourg employees have to have a minimum of five years within the organisation before receiving severance pay.

In France and Slovenia, employees with up to five years’ tenure are entitled to severance pay amounting to a maximum of one month’s pay; in Spain, the entitlement is 100 days’ pay for the same tenure."

AirBnB is giving laid off workers around 3 months of severance pay. How is that less competitive than what's given in Europe?

yup, it's better then what you would get in most of the europe.

does US have an unemployment plan. how long and how much do you get ?

> does US have an unemployment plan. how long and how much do you get ?

Each state has unemployment insurance. In most cases, the benefit amount per week/month puts you around the federal poverty line for an individual. No state has a severance requirement (although some do require your PTO balance be paid out as wages).

https://fileunemployment.org/unemployment-benefits/unemploym...

Yeah so severance is what you get from the company directly.

That counts as your usual pay. So during that time you don't get 'unemployment'. After the severance runs out then you collect unemployment, how much that is varies state to state.

then it's a little different in europe (afaik), you get your severance, it's one time payment but it's usually not that big. and you can right away get your unemployment payment. the length and the amount depends on how much have you worked and the pay you had. the one does not depend on the other.

Yes. It depends on your salary, but given the current covid crisis, most airbnb technical employees are eligible for around $4200 per month for 26 weeks.

Oh right, it's before the state unemployment. Then I don't know.

Do the employees have to work during these 3 months? It is not clear from the article. If not, it is quite "competitive".

Their last day is May 11th, so no they're not working. Otherwise it wouldn't be considered severance pay, that's basically just giving 3 months notice.

It's not severance if you're working. Severance comes after you're not working.

It's not, people just love shitting on America. 14 weeks + 1 additional for each year served at US salaries + unemployment + paid health insurance for 12 months is extremely generous compared to the peanuts that Europe pays engineers.

Unless you realize that you're comparing severance package of one of top US companies to EU standard.

the original comment was specifically saying AirBnBs severance isn’t impressive compared to europe, which is not true.

AirBnBs severance package is impressive compared to rest of US.

Twisting words a bit: most of Europe doesn't get much worse severance than top US corporation. That's impressive.

IT in Europe also gets better severance etc.

Also, not checked in other countries, but in Poland for example: regular salaried employees get 3 month notice if tenure is 3+ years.

But this is already more than 3 months even with 1 month of tenure?

What you describe here as generous is pretty standard in my part of Europe, things like health insurance or unemployment benefits aren't even a concern to worry about. In fact, when fired, my company normally gives 3 months PLUS 1 month per year worked. Now that's what I call generous.

What part is that? And what's the average salary there? It's easy to give 6 months of severance when you're severely underpaying compared to global labor markets.

My brother (in Australia, where I grew up, before moving to the US) recently got laid off from his firm (actually, I believe they were going out of business due to retirement or such). Their policy was 1 month severance per year. He'd been there 14 years, 14 months severance.

What's the average for Europe?

afaik in some countries its not required (switzerland?) and in others it depends on the number of years the person worked in company. i think it depends on the country.

No severance pay required in Switzerland but there will be a mandatory one month to three months notice period. A company can decide to send their workers home earlier but they would still be required to pay salary for that period. Though when laying of 25% there will be some additional government requirements as it would be classified as a mass-layoff and will need a social plan.

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