Having short term contracts solved this a long time ago and is mostly a fallacy.

Short term contracts have pretty big downsides though. It's basically impossible to get a mortgage on a short term contract, or more generally any kind of loan. Even renting is difficult.

That's why many EU countries have pretty strict limitations on short term contracts, like how many you can do in a row. It results in a huge reliance on contractors.

Short term contracts are basically taking the entirety of the ‘shit’ end of the stick for someone else, and are way worse than the median tech job in the US conditions wise.

How is a short term contract a solution? It sounds like you don’t have a job at the end of the contract?

Yes, but you know when that will happen.

Soon. Maybe, since it could get renewed eh?

The US also has contractors.

nope. you dont invest the same way in a 6 month contractor that you are not sure to renew down the road as you would for a full time employee. And this goes both ways. The contractor has not much incentive to perform well either.

> And this goes both ways. The contractor has not much incentive to perform well either.

Can you explain your thoughts here a bit further? The short term contract can be renewed or replaced with a full time contract. This should provide extra incentive to perform well compared to a full time employee (who doesn't have to worry about either), as long the as the company is a good employer.

>The short term contract can be renewed or replaced with a full time contract.

As someone in games, this is exactly the road to getting exploited. "If I work harder and really wow them with this feature, I could get full time work!" meanwhile, there were plans to not renew anyone at the end of the project and to lay off full time workers. But you get a convinient carrot to lure starry-eyed devs with

Your "as long as the company is a good employer" is doing Atlas levels of lifing here.

Sure, that's my point. There is nothing inherent in short term contracts that makes employees less invested - that's your fault as a company.

Burn too much good will and people will treat the contract as a contract. And not a hope to impress the boss for a ft role. Another short term exploitation that turns into long term cynicism.

I don't think that's happening in games or tech, but it's been widely observed that Gen Z is less invested in corporate than ever before (or from the boomer's POV: "nobody wants to work anymore").

Sadly, that's what happens when everything is treated as a resource in exchange for short-term gains. Employees, good will, any morals and ethics - all will be sacrificed on the altar of shareholder value.

I would rather companies be a lot more deliberate about hiring people rather than just hiring and firing willy nilly.

Ehh, this is bullshit. Companies will hire when they need.

It actually makes companies more hesitant to fire.

more hesitant to fire means they are more hesitant to hire. that 100% goes together.

So what. Getting jobs isn't a problem here, on the contrary.

Employment figures for Ireland or Germany aren't far from their US counterpart.

And on the other hand, the French government dramatically loosened the rules around layoffs in 2016 (you can let people go as soon as you have a decline in sales over a few month, a negative cash flow over the same period, if their are new competitors on your market, or even just if there's technological change in your sector that justifies getting rid of people). It was 8 years ago and it has had little to no impact on France's unemployment, which is still very high.

I'd rather go through a bigger hoop one time every 10 years or more than the current circus of being let go every 2-3 years and needing to re-interview. The latter just means I spend part of my free time worrying about the next job hop by studying trivia, instead of doing something I actually like to do.