Having experienced layoffs in both US and EU companies, the difference is massive. In my experience there is very little respect for "the human" being laid off in US companies

People literally would just disappear day to day. I've had several instances where I only found out a colleague had been fired because I tried to write them on Slack only to find that their account had been deactivated

Personally I felt constantly worried working in such an environment and I don't want to work for another US company again if I can help it

There are of course bad cases in the EU, but in my experience it's way less common than in the US

> Layoffs here are always done in conjunction with the unions.

Europe is vastly diverse and your experience is not representative of all Europe.

I worked at a company with a US division and a German division.

It was stark, the difference in process between the two countries. Leadership was openly complaining about how they couldn't close out shuttering the company because it was going to take six months to handle legal compliance in Germany.

This was during an all-hands, and one delightfully brave soul who knew it didn't matter much what he said since we were all exiting anyway commented in the public channel "Because of those laws, the American employees also get a six-month heads up instead of a locked door when they drive in in the morning, so today, we're all very grateful to Germany and our German peers."

I worked a at large European company. They announced there would be layoffs. But not who, just the date. On that date, they came round during the day, tapping people on the shoulder, who walked out of the room and were never seen in the office again. Grown men were crying, who weren't even let go.

I never felt good about that company ever again.

> Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else.

As someone from Europe, I’ve never experienced US salaries. Go figure.

* Experience in Central- and Eastern Europe (CEE) may differ.

Well, getting escorted out definitely doesn't happen here either at least.

It really depends on the people you work for, it's not like Europe is some kind of paradise in this matter. I was working as a contractor for a company in Germany, after a few years working together, they cut me off from one day to the next (the new manager decided to start saving money), even though my contract included a clause about a one-month notice period. They didn’t even bother to pay the invoice for the work I had already done that month (it was the 23rd of the month, so we’re talking about a few thousand euros). And since I wasn't living in Germany, extracting that money from them was almost impossible.

Yes, it may be different for full-time non-contract jobs, but once you're on a contract, nobody cares.

It makes sense in the US where they have terms like "going postal" and easy access to guns

That's not universal though. My dad's company was bought up by a foreign investor, shrunk over multiple reorganizations from its peak of ~500 people in the 70's or 80's down to a skeleton crew of ~50. They weren't fired, they were told the company was going bankrupt and needed to be emptied out. People who worked there for 40+ years were basically given a few months' pay if that and a "good luck". There's a formula for severance pay; years worked * month's wage, this would give people a lot of leeway to find a new job or just sit out until their retirement, but of course that's very expensive so they weaseled their way out of it through various constructions. Dozens of people fired a few years before retirement, most never found another job again. And the boss kept the company, which is now a shell company / sales / license holder, which the parent company was always after of course because production is cheaper to do in e.g. Poland.

The idea of being able to keep a laptop sounds absurd to me. Of course many European countries have labor laws which make it near impossible to fire someone on the spot.

>Only in very critical jobs they'd walk you out immediately but then you still get the pay.

Presumably you are also still employed, just not given any tasks. I do not think that here in Germany there is any way to immediately fire someone, just because he was working on something critical.

Many companies refuse to do layoffs entirely. Which often means that they have difficulties responding to changes in the environment or need to heavily rely on contractors.

That is mostly in Central and Nothern Europe, unfortunely in the south even with unions, things not always go as they should be.

> Weird, as someone from Europe I've never experience anything else.

Yeah, no. Also European, and have been marched out without notice, cut off that day with no chance to say goodbye, etc.

I have seen this in EU too

that’s very business hostile tbh. I wouldn’t start a company there.