Doing business in France - employees
Think we have it bad here? Try doing business in France.
From
Bloomberg Businessweek:
Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies
Here’s a curious fact about the French economy: The country has 2.4 times as many companies with 49 employees as with 50. What difference does one employee make? Plenty, according to the French labor code. Once a company has at least 50 employees inside France, management must create three worker councils, introduce profit sharing, and submit restructuring plans to the councils if the company decides to fire workers for economic reasons.
French businesspeople often skirt these restraints by creating new companies rather than expanding existing ones. “I can’t tell you how many times when I was Minister I’d meet an entrepreneur who would tell me about his companies,” Thierry Breton, chief executive officer of consulting firm Atos and Minister of Finance from 2005 to 2007, said at a Paris conference on April 4. “I’d ask, ‘Why companies?’ He’d say, ‘Oh, I have several so that I can keep [the workforce] under 50.’ We have to review our labor code.”
What braying ninny of a 'mastermind' thought this up. How on God's Green Earth did it seem like a good idea. Were they incapable of thinking through and seeing the unintended consequences and how people in the real world would
route around the damage. Someone this stupid probably wasn't elected -- they are a clueless functionary appointed by some long gone bureaucrat.
Hat tip to
Maggie's Farm for the link.
Posted by DaveH at May 9, 2012 9:54 PM