Spotify ordered to reverse layoffs in the Netherlands | Hacker News Reader

Spotify ordered to reverse layoffs in the Netherlands

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47 pointsApocryphon13 comments

Companies should probably be banned from doing layoffs if they can't show that they are either:

- actively losing money

- shuttering an entire division (that is losing money)

Currently, it just seems like they're going through needless cycles of over-hiring and then layoffs. All while maintaining record profits.

Crazy talk. Consider this scenario: I have a company with 80% of my revenues and profits coming from 20% of my company, but that other 80% still requires 80% of my time and energy. Should I be forced to continue to maintain that 80% rather than devoting time and attention to the part of my business that is clearly far more successful, in demand, and probably enjoyable, just for the sake of maintaining the jobs?

No? OK, now I'll hire 20 people so that division is losing money. Great, now I can legally shut it down.

The first logical workaround that appears to violate the spirit of the law while maintaining the letter tends to work out better in fantasy than in the courtroom, as courts take a pretty dim view of that.

Not that you can't use some legal chicanery, just that you need to make sure lawyers came up with it.

This all lands pretty deep in fantasy-territory discussion without picking a particular jurisdiction, however, and assuming legislation that didn't cover that scenario.

I have a company with 80% of my revenues and profits coming from 20% of my company, but that other 80% still requires 80% of my time and energy.

You've just described pretty much every big corporation.

80% of the revenues comes from the sales department (or equivalent), but 80% of your time and energy spent with the rest of the company, the rest of the company makes it possible for that 20% to just do whatever it is that makes the company revenue.

If it is making money you could sell it off. You could also not give it 80% of your time, presumably it would be dysfunctional and not profitable at that point and you could justify laying them off. Or perhaps the division would operate less optimally but still create profit.

"I should be able to wreck 20 people's lives because honoring my agreements is inconvenient for me"

This is an odd precedent to set, and I can only imagine it leads to US companies being more reluctant to setup EU officers.

Eh, I guess the question is:

Is this the type of company you want around your people?

Where top executives make miscalculations, and receive great bonuses even if they mess up, to then offload their bad decisions on a workforce that will be at the hands of the state once unemployed, with all the societal issues that generate from that.

Why should the workers, and the state, get the sht handed to them, while the top executives and the shareholders get all the good stuff?

Maybe they should pursue a different type of working agreement for risky projects and look for contractors, not employees. Or maybe lay off the executive team and bring in ones who make better decisions?

I don't think you understand how uninterested Europeans are in having a bunch of American companies set up shop and violate local labour laws and norms with impunity.

Maybe the US should follow the EU

Nah, layoffs are good. Less wasted capital.

Here bud, you dropped this: /s

Article the tweet/news is sourced from: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-pulse-79-is-i...

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