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Small correction. When you’re getting laid off they pay you for whatever termination time is in contract. Usually it’s something pretty long, like 3 months, with some contracts structured in such a way that this period grows with your tenure at the company. My “notice” period grew from 1 month during first half a year to 3 months afterwards.

Once a layoff is declared you get paid for the remainder time plus often a severance package (about 6-12 months of salary in total is customary). You are expected to work these 3 months, though, just like you would work for 3 months (and get paid) if you decide to charge jobs.

In practice it means working with people who will leave a company soon is pretty common, having these people as your bosses, as your subordinates, see them at company social gatherings etc etc is all part of working culture. They aren’t perceived as a threat to business or to company morale. Handover of responsibilities, knowledge transfer, hiring or training a replacement: all these processes tend to spread out gradually over months, and the resulting transition is often pretty painless.

It’s a stark contrast to US business practice and people working across the ocean or relocating from one continent to the other need time to adapt.

Europeans pointing such differences on a website does not necessarily constitute “triggering”. If you knew all of this already, great. But someone reading this thread may learn about it for the first time, and there’s no downsides to sharing the knowledge.



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