Ask HN: Is it smart to change jobs considering the possible recession? (EU)
I got a offer from a company, which among other things, consists of a medium pay raise in comparison to my present job and more exciting projects. The company is mid sized and honored as one of the best employers although I would be working for a branch located in a lower cost of living country.
In my current company I'm valued as a good employee and if it comes to cutting costs I highly doubt it I would be first or second in line.
Considering the upcoming recession, is it wise to job hop for not such a huge pay rise or should I stick to my current, mildly boring but safe job instead?
71 comments
[ 62.8 ms ] story [ 2331 ms ] threadCompanies can go bust entirely, they can cut entire business units or entire teams. Even within your team you may be viewed as "a good employee" but still be deemed less important than someone else, or just much less costly to let go.
Irrespective of a recession, I would look at the growth prospects of the team/business/company of a prospective employer vs. those of my current employer, and their reasons for hiring.
The business there could legally make you redundant without being obligated to paying you anything.
The unemployment office would pay you then based on your contributions.
Maybe if you're part of some old industrial dinosaur with a strong union like the metal industry.
In practice nobody is keeping people around after firing them, you send them home and pay the remaining salary ("Freistellung"). At least in developer jobs in many companies I've never seen anyone stay after being fired.
I don't think it is a good calculation to stay in a job because you would get a good compensation package if you were let go, but that's a personal decision to make.
Now, I switched jobs 4 months ago. I had the same question in my head "is this the right time?". So far, I don't regret.
Maybe, maybe not.
They can and do back date recession dates to a previous date. But obviously haven’t made a call yet and the colloquial definition of a recession is not how they make that determination.
This is all wonky academic Economics stuff but it’s not changed in a very long time and has nothing to do with the current administration as it’s not even a governmental function.
Last in, first out.
There are other factors besides salary at work that are leading me to consider options right now so this isn't purely financially motivated, but my decision is that the broader context right now to be telling me to weather it out where I am for the short to medium term.
If you're worried about possible future layoffs, I would look at both roles in relation to their link to revenue.
If you're an experienced new hirer then generally they've been trying to fill a position with a specific skillset, possible for a long while. Unless that skillset evaporates then you probably have higher probability of sticking around than somebody else already in the company, who didn't have the same skillset. It is very situational but being established doesn't protect you as everybody's number will be "up" eventually.
Depending on where OP lives, simply trying can be to his disadvantage in the future. Not everyone lives in the US where job hopping is apparently not seen as a concern for most employers.
I would go this route: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32798617
That's why this conservativism made Germany a world leader in successful software companies. /s
I was leaving my last job after 1.5 years.
People asked and I told them and had 3 independent better job offers despite switching often.
And I was on the other side as well(still am) and yes of course you think (mmhhh hope he/she stays longer this time) but you know what? Finding good people is hard enough.
If you have a good resume and know what you are doing, switch jobs often when you are younger to get experience and pay raises.
When you start being 40, probably 50 it's getting harder.
If someone changing jobs frequently is considered a red flag, that’s a failure of imagination on the part of the prospective employer. You look and see a “reliable employee” I look and see a no-nonsense individual who knows his worth and interests and is not afraid to pursue that.
In my experience hire fast fire fast works best. Because the really good ones don’t get fired.
My general ordered preference is to try to be in a buisiness that won't be affected, then a group that isn't affected within a buisiness that is, then I may prefer to be a person that is affected within a group that is, it really depends on how miserable the job is going to be which may not actually compare favorably to finding a new one in a recession.
Recessions are often an excuse to get rid of the problem people, not new employees. It really does depend.
"The protection goes both ways" they say, as you can leave your job and quit with no notice just the same, but it's quite an imbalance as the employee leaving does not generally have any impact on the employer's health insurance, while employees generally do depend on their employer-provided health insurance.
Then again asking about the "EU" is a bad question as every country in the EU has wildly different laws, even now the UK has left.
I'm asking because I recently moving to the EU and all I see here is 40-60K ranges and I'm curious if there are some engineers making 100K or something salaries
1. You aren’t a good employee as individual.
2. Cost cutting measures to entire company functions.
I think in both cases you should know whether your position is in imminent danger.
Isn't that obviously what op is asking?
Me and 18k people were let go in 2018. I was contract, so I knew what was going to happen.
I was hired by a different company who was confident in their ability to not fire contractors during recessions. Before 2020 they let go of the contractors.
I wasn't concerned because I had a ton of money + skills. But I'm pretty sure op is going to be dealing with a similar situation to me.
Also, in my opinion, it's better to get fired from an exciting job than from a boring one.
How so?
Right now is a fantastic time to look for jobs with a 30%+ bump in salary. Even if it all goes to shit in just 3 months (it won’t), that’s an extra full month in your personal safety net. Better still: Having that stronger job on your resume makes it easier to find the next next job.
This cannot be stressed enough. Even if it only was for the psychological effect it has on your negotiations with potential employers.
If I got laid off tomorrow, I would look forward to spending more time with my family.
The big wild card is inflation. Inflation really screws over the lower income.
Is your idea that your current company is less likely to lay anyone off or that the companies have similar futures but you think it would be safer for you to have more tenure?
A few other ideas would be to: try to work out how much money you’d want to move. Can the other company pay you that much? Could you apply to some other company and get an offer for that much? If you take the new job and live like you’re on the previous pay, can you put the difference towards saving in case you get laid off.
In general I guess most people are a little too risk averse. So maybe you should take the leap (or try applying for other jobs; I like the argument here: http://benkuhn.net/outliers/ ) or maybe you should try to get into a position where you feel better able to take risks like this, e.g. by having more savings or something to fall back on.
If in a recession 20% of people lose their job (exhagurating for the sake of the argument), you have a lot of agency in making sure that you are in the 80% who don't. And even if you're so unlucky you end up in a company that goes bankrupt or has to cut 80% of jobs or anyone hired in the last year or something like that, you are still likely to be able to find another job just as easily as you found this one.
On the other hand, never taking any (reasonable, calculated) risk is the surest way to erode, over time, whatever advantage you have previously earned and let your career converge towards the average and below it.
And mostly it's most-recent hire gets fired first. Of course the government does exempt itself from these regulation: both union folks themselves and people that are for various reasons placed by government (e.g. people who have a regulatory function, but work/are paid by the bank, and usually a whole management structure above them), cannot get fired. Only in healthcare have I really seen that there's a real order, and of course, it's based on perceived status. Maintenance personnel gets fired first, administrators last. Despite the obvious problems this generates for the care patients receive.
The real kick in the nuts of these agreements is that because they have force of law, they override your contract (instead of contracts taking precedence like in the private sector) and are not bound by many rules (e.g. they can devalue pensions already earned AFTER THE FACT. For example, say you "earn" 100 per month pension for every year of work. After 20 years, they suddenly decide that, no, they're only going to pay you 50. Despite you having already earned that)
Did you expect me to list dozens of other companies?
Here in France, there's an up to six months "trial" period during which either party can terminate the employment for any reason and without notice. In case of a downturn, it's convenient to lay these people off.
Had this happen to me once, when I joined a company that, as it turned out, had to undergo some "restructuring" [0]. Three months in, my boss told me they weren't going to keep me, nor anyone else on their trial period. They were cool about it though, and told me I could stay until I found a replacement (or the full six months) and they even introduced me to a recruiter who did a pretty good job. In the end, I moved on to a much better position two weeks later, so all in all, and to GP's point, it was a good thing.
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[0] Things did get quite bad. As I found out later from an ex-colleague, many people had left; so this wasn't just a disguised way of kicking me out.
The position you mentioned is likely part of a backlog which accumulated over the vacation season.
In any case I personally decided to stay in my not particularly exciting and underpaid job (considering that offers I get average around +50%) so I can attest to the fact that it's not the end of the world if you do so.
first point: companies like coin base were rapidly growing into new Geos and verticals. These were teams with maybe a handful of old employees and then a sea of new ones. So when the vertical or geo got axed, just by the numbers a lot of “new” people got axed. Same story for Snapchat (their newish gaming dept) and TikTok (gaming again).
Second point: labour laws are very different to what they were a few decades ago. It’s no longer really expensive to get rid of old employees. I have no data here but my experience is that weakened labour laws have made firing more performance based and you know the performance of your existing work force best. If you move and are seen immediately as the future direction of the company, you are gold dust.
Just my 2 cent
strong balance sheet, profitability etc. go with one that is the strongest.
I've been too employable for most of my life -- walking out and figuring it out later.
It's worth making sure you have enough hang time while waiting for another vine to swing on.
Work still needs done and you're presumably still employable, recession or not the same metrics work
I'd probably go for it, as long as I had enough savings to cover me if they had to let people go, and that I was reasonably confident I could find something else if I had to.
For my whole working life, most of my jobs have lasted no more than 2 years, due to a combination of working for small companies & start ups, mergers, the dot com crash, redundancies and contracting. So finding a new job for me holds no particular fear. I do live in London though, so there's a lot of opportunity.