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Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by flukus on Monday January 02, 2017 @07:00PM (#13305528)
What about the other burdens you don't have to worry about in these countries like healthcare for employees?

Also, those restrictions on firing may be giving you a lot more potential employees. Changing jobs is a risk and if you were able to fire them after a week then that would be a major financial setback for them.

Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by tptacek on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @11:37AM (#13310335)
One thing I think a lot of people in business agree about is that we should adopt a more European approach (the Swiss approach is particularly good) to healthcare. You're right: the American approach to health care is a disaster for small employers.
Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by jblow on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @12:50PM (#13311112)
I agree ... it doesn't make any sense to me that an employer should have anything to do with supplying healthcare to employees. It just makes the system more complicated. I'd be happy with simplifying that out.

But this doesn't seem to be nearly enough to tip the balance in terms of operating a business overall ... I consistently hear from people how much it sucks to operate a small business in Europe. I don't see what's wrong in principle with having worker protections kick in at a certain company size, but that doesn't seem to be popular.

Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by Tomte on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @01:40PM (#13311701)
Most worker protection laws in Germany only kick in when you've got a certain number of employees. I'm too lazy to look up the number, but it's small, single-digit I think.
Re:Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy... by tptacek on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @03:14PM (#13312634)
Which, in tech industry terms, means "almost immediately".