| This idea you bring up that the jobs will evaporate when businesses are regulated sounds logical, but it’s a trap. McDonald’s didn’t wait for the minimum wage to go up to be motivated to install automated drink dispensing machines and self-service kiosks. In fact, the minimum wage adjusted for inflation was decreasing during the entire time period in which those innovations were deployed. On the other end of the labor spectrum, companies like Meta had no problem hiring thousands of excess employees during a period of high wage growth and scarce tech talent. When labor generates revenue, companies will hire regardless of regulations. When labor is unnecessary for revenue, no regulation will prevent a company from downsizing. Extra, guaranteed severance pay and a reduced unemployment insurance bureaucratic burden would be a godsend for terminated employees. I argue that for most businesses it would be a minor adjustment to their standard operating procedures. An analogy to your point: “Cars will be too expensive if safety standards are required.” While it’s true that cars are more expensive than they would be without those safety features, the market has adjusted just fine and the societal benefits outweigh the drawbacks. |
In Australia we have superannuation. The government is raising the mandatory super contribution soon from 9% to, idk, 12%. Some people act like that change is free, but that's obviously not the case if you think about it. All that'll happen is regular wages are reduced a little such that a person's total compensation is basically the same in the end.
I contend the same will be true of generous severance policies, especially those imposed on a global scale. Some of these things are worth fighting for, I'm not sure huge severance periods are one of those things, personally. At best something that scales with experience/time at a company (eg. half a month of severance per year of experience, or whatever value fits your conception of the idea), so those more attached to a particular position have more time to adjust if they are let go.