Voluntary departures and conventional layoffs are preferred: this is the specificity of the European laws on which the big tech players are breaking their teeth, after announcing mass layoffs in Europe.
While tech companies have been able to quickly cut payrolls in the United States, planned layoffs have stalled in Europe, where more protective labor laws in some countries make it virtually impossible to fire an employee without consulting representatives of the employer. personal, notes Bloomberg.
protective laws
In France, Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. is testing the path of voluntary departures by offering severance payments. Amazon France, which employs 1,500 people in Paris, would offer some top executives up to a year’s salary, according to Bloomberg sources, where the company in previous years offered less than a month’s compensation.
Existing laws may well force Google to lay off the last few workers at its French and German branches — if at all. No layoffs are expected in Romania, Greece or Australia, according to the company.
In Paris, they are negotiating with Google to find out which of the 1,600 Parisian employees are affected by a voluntary departure plan. Resolution should not occur for several weeks. According to an employee who wishes to remain anonymous and who testified for Bloomberg, no one will be forced to leave.
“It’s inspiring to people in the United States”
In the United Kingdom, 500 departures from the 8,000 jobs are planned, 240 in Dublin and some 200 in Zurich, according to union sources. Google employees are also creating a transnational works council across Europe, which should be operational within six months.
This situation is causing a sensation among American employees, who “have realized that the way things are done in the United States compared to France and Germany” is different, says Parul Koul, an engineer at Google, based in New York, which runs Alphabet. Workers Union.
On the mainland and in the UK, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta employ more than 170,000 people in the technology industry.
Source: BFM TV
