From your own source: UK's informal employment rate? 6.5%, not 24%. Ireland? 1.8%. Germany: 2.5%. Norway: 2%. Many EU countries have strong labor protections alongside low informality and high employment. While labor protections pose challenges, they do not inherently lead to high informality or low job creation. Effective policy design and enforcement are key to achieving economic stability with strong worker rights.

I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire at will. COVID had employees re-assess what was important for them. Tangentially, now we're seeing that shorter working weeks results in higher employee productivity and satisfaction.[1]

Having job security, when you've taken on long-term commitments like a mortgage and raising kids, is considered important in many parts of the world. The EU isn't SV; for employees that's probably a good thing.

[1]: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/surprising-benefits-...

>>>I'm not surprised, on a startup-angled site, that there'd be dissatisfaction with not being able to hire and fire at will

Its not just startups. The chickens always come home to roost.

Lets go into COVID since it is a wonderful example. Employers in Ecuador dealt with minimum wage protections well outpacing productivity growth precovid, doubling the cost of protections relative to Colombia and 75 percent higher than in Peru [1] . Then COVID hit. The central government had no choice but to temporarily rescind the rules of strict protections under "force majeure". This eliminated all severance payments to employees under 'force majeure'. [2]

What happened?

A bunch of low performers who had built a decade or more in 1 job, got unexpectedly laid off, despite working in perfectly operating businesses with no risk of bankruptcy (AG, export adjacent etc) Then, with zero marketable skills from a decade of non-work, these workers are chronically unemployable now. [3]

PS - Regarding the UK number cited, which some people felt very strongly about.. I made a mistake and quoted the wrong year. I can't edit my comment any longer [4]

[1] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/2... see page 11, section 1.

[2] https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2020-09-21/ecu...

[3] https://www.elibrary.imf.org/downloadpdf/journals/002/2021/2... , see page 13, section 6 ("the recovery has been very partially among the less educated (persons with basic education or less) ....'they exited' the labor force in larger numbers from the crisis onset")

[4] The number is available in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_share_of_...

Why are you now talking about Ecuador and COVID? And you haven't addressed the UK link where you say 24% but it's 6.5%. Makes the rest of what you blather more untrustworthy than it was

You think LATAM is in poverty because of their worker protections? Not the decades of western exploitation of their natural resources? Not the decades of American interference in their political systems to destabilize their government? Sure.

I'd also like to know what the United States informal labor rate is, but sadly that [4] link doesn't have it. So really, comparing to the UK is pointless without knowing what the US is. And if you think the US doesn't have informal labor, then I suggest you go to a Home Depot parking lot.

oh, and on the UK issue, did you look at the map on the link you sent? It says the UK's rate of informal employment is 6.5%, not 24%. Either start reading better or stop lying.

> You think LATAM is in poverty because of their worker protections? Not the decades of western exploitation of their natural resources? Not the decades of American interference in their political systems to destabilize their government? Sure.

No, countries regularly go from poverty to wealth quickly. It's purely cultural which is upstream from policy.

I work in the EU, and I'd rather see the American "at-will" system, but with a basic income + additional financial distress protections.

It is IMO ridiculous that in a lot of EU countries, chronic low performance is not just cause for firing.

It makes economical sense to reduce the friction of allocating workers where they'll be most productive. It just shouldn't destroy those workers' financial security.

I'd argue the main reason low performance employees don't get fired is because managers either don't know who the low performers are, or don't want to have an unpleasant conversation and can choose to put it off indefinitely.