It's months. Amazing for employees and terrifying for employers. Someone I know took a new job somewhere, only to let them know a week or so after being there that his wife was about to have their child and he was going to be gone for the next 14 months.
They were not going to be able to fire him without repercussions. He was not required to let them know during the interview.
They just employed someone for a full time job because they needed to spend €x on someone to do Y work
Now they don't have to pay that money, which is fine, but they then need to find someone on a 14 month contract that will do it for the same salary as the person they just employed.
Then at the end of it they are left with paying an overlap from the contractor to someone new
First, a little nitpicking: one of the parents can take at most 12 months off, so there is no "14 month contract".
Second, the whole thing can be way more complex. In Germany a mother has her job secured for the moment she announces to be pregnant to until the child is 3 years old. So one could decide that will take the Elterngeld for 12 months but actually just go back to work 18 months, and the employer has no way of stopping it.
Third and final point: NONE OF THIS MATTERS! Trying to find the "fairness" in this is nothing but some incredibly naive exercise. Like most things in life, salaries are not determined by the amount of value produced but rather by market value of labor. Risks when dealing with labor force should be already priced in.
Sure, and the policy is good, but there is still an impact on the company. Most situations that will be a large company which can easily cope, but in small companies struggling to survive is can have an locally detrimental effect (despite the company benefiting from the policy as a whole)
What makes you think that the small companies are struggling to survive? And from all of the policies in Germany that exist to "protect" the employees (minimum wage, employer share of pension contribution, health insurance, etc) what makes you think that this particular policy deserves such special concern?
You can hire a replacement on a 14-month contract.
If your company can deal with an employee getting hit by a bus / winning the lottery and quitting, then it can deal with an employee taking maternity/paternity leave.
Noone is demanding that. If the company can't get it done without the person taking parental leave they simply have to sink or swim.
Like with any other law regulating worker benefits and worker safety. But companies know that starting out and have to plan and act accordingly. That's the cost of doing business.
It's only the "cost of doing business" because of man made arbitrary laws. It doesn't have to be the cost of doing business. Why do you claim "noone is demanding that", when in the next sentence you just shrug it off as "they'll just have to sink, whatever". If the alternative for the business is to go out of business, it is "demanding".
Businesses are not at fault for their employees getting pregnant, so why should they have to shoulder the risk? If society wants to protect mothers, society should pay up, not the individual businesses.
Are you saying people shouldn't run childcare facilities? Or only huge childcare facilities are allowed, which certainly wasn't the intention of the laws for maternal leave?
> If the alternative for the business is to go out of business, it is "demanding".
Then don't hire employees in a region/country that has good employee protection laws/regulations. If businesses want to operate in such a region/country they will have to comply with ALL the laws and regulations there. If they don't, they should operate in a (in this respect at least) third-world country like the US.
> Businesses are not at fault for their employees getting pregnant, so why should they have to shoulder the risk?
Reproduction is integral to society. I businesses don't want to have that "risk" they should only hire people old enough that they can be sure they're barren/impotent but then they're discriminating in their hiring process AND get employees that are already relatively close to retirement (i.e. not a good idea).
> If society wants to protect mothers, society should pay up, not the individual businesses.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe_and_Cent... -> Germany since it would to me if I had children. 14 weeks maternity leave with full pay, 14 months parental leave with up to 67% or the maximum (1800€ per month according §2 (1) BEEG) specified by the law. In Germany this monetary responsibility is mixed (social security AND employer).
> Are you saying people shouldn't run childcare facilities? Or only huge childcare facilities are allowed, which certainly wasn't the intention of the laws for maternal leave?
???, this was never part of my argument. Going back to your comment I originally replied to, many many businesses and branches of business have difficulty hiring people but that doesn't really matter here.
"Then don't hire employees in a region/country that has good employee protection laws/regulations."
Not very practical for childcare facilities?
" If businesses want to operate in such a region/country they will have to comply with ALL the laws and regulations there"
The point is that laws can be changed. Here in Germany especially, we are very aware that laws are not automatically good. We went through this period of time where a lot of bad laws were in place.
"they should only hire people old enough that they can be sure they're barren/impotent"
Or, you know, men? Which is exactly what the feminists governments want to avoid, but they bring it about with their paternity laws. Also, what you suggest is technically illegal in most Western countries (discrimination).
Sorry, but I get the impression you haven't really thought much about these issues yet.
"14 months parental leave with up to 67% or the maximum"
Yes, the government pays mothers, but it doesn't compensate businesses for the losses they incur when women they hired leave for motherhood. They just have "punishing" laws like the job position has to be kept open in case the mother wants to return. That is a punishment for businesses, who are not at fault for women having children.
"this was never part of my argument."
You just dismiss it if certain types of businesses struggle. I explicitly mentioned childcare facilities because I have experienced the problem firsthand.
The point is that laws can have unintended consequences. And those don't go away by simply saying "the business should just go bankrupt or operate in another country".
"many many businesses and branches of business have difficulty hiring people but that doesn't really matter here."
Of course it matters, it means the cost of hiring women is even higher, because replacing them is expensive.
What about the case where the guy leaves because is cool in software engineering to change jobs very often? or because now language X is cool and the guy wants to add that on the CV and not your old boring language Y.
In any case your employee can leave so make sure you are not dead because most of the value is in this person head. Though you might as always make a counter offer and pay him much more if he is so valuable.
In Norway you also don't have to pay their salary... Makes hiring a fixed term replacement a little easier and often the replacement turns out to be a good fit and if you want to grow you now have a four person company.
They were not going to be able to fire him without repercussions. He was not required to let them know during the interview.