[PixelB]

Great, but that most certainly does not work at all companies.

The last company I worked for unequivocally treated their non-management employees like garbage. The company basically had the same management for 10 years prior, with a few "loyal" employees promoted to manager along the way. By "loyal" I mean that they were willing to sell anyone out to advance their own careers.

If the company even caught wind you were looking elsewhere, your life would become a living hell. Get ready for extra hours (Salaried, no extra pay), weekend work, Holiday work, getting your vacation time denied because they are "too busy", etc. Pretty hard to find a job when your employer is making you physically ill from stress.

In the meantime, the moment they catch wind of you looking elsewhere they start bringing in new candidates. Easy to fill those Bachelors-level positions after all, lots of recent college grads willing to not have a life in lieu of work, and they will probably want less money than you too!

I saw entire teams of 10+ people replaced within a year, then again, having to retrain their own replacements. The company even outsourced our work to Malaysia and we were warned not to tell our clients about it or we could face termination.

The only way to survive in corporate America nowadays is to be a cutthroat scumbag, no thanks.

[dustinmoris]

Are you talking about developers? Currently the market is in favour of employees, as there is more demand for them than supply, at least that is my feeling based on constantly being harassed by head hunters trying to desperately fill positions and not even having luck by recruiting people from all around the world.

If a company can afford to treat its employees like "garbage" then they will and that is the exact point that when the market is in favour of employees, they shouldn't be shy to treat their employer with the same scrutiny. Demand every penny you can get and if they are not willing to give you what you can get elsewhere, then be prepared to just go, because as you said very well, if the company would have that advantage they would do it as well.

[Tomis02]

> Currently the market is in favour of employees, as there is more demand for them than supply

I don't think that's the case, most of the time it's just employers being unreasonably picky. "10 years of C++ experience? You definitely won't be able to hack it in here, we use insert popular language of the day". Or, à-la Google, "we only hire the best, because doing mind-numbingly boring work that will have zero impact on the company bottom line needs the brightest minds on the planet". Or "can't hire gramps, they're too old". When there's a shortage you take what you can get and make the best of it, and it's not the case now.

[PixelB]

Pharmaceutical research.

[ethbro]

Do you know what the incentives were for training their replacements? I've always been curious on this.

Employment-at-will cuts both ways. If a company asks you to do this without adequate (and I'd definitely say bonus also merited) compensation, tell them to pound sand and walk away that day.