Dear M.Barnier,

[Brigadier]

I ran an EMEA wide consulting practice for 5 years.. We had to deal with all sorts of inflexibilities which basically meant we were extremely cautious about recruiting in France, Germany, Spain or Italy. A quick summary:
- It can easily cost you 300K Euro's to get rid of an old slacker (on 100k per year) who does just enough not to get fired.
- German employment law makes it extremely difficult to analyse productivity and performance of employees
- Spanish employees do f***a** from June-Sept
- Our share of the economic wallet was about twice as high in the UK and if anyone had to go, they were happy with 10 months pay or less. I could also hire quickly, knowing that the employee would work hard for at least 2 years in the knowledge that he/she had few employment rights. Obviously in difficult times it was the uk team which got hit first, but generally we cut less and hired more.

Reminds me of this article i read some years ago:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/06/french-workers-bosses-hostage-goodyear-amiens

 

[motorbiking]

Interesting - what Industry was this?

When you said regulation I wasn't thinking about employment regulation per se. It was more about competition and markets - but I take your point about employment practices.

In your industry did you suffer from shortages of qualified workers?

Professional Services - Corporate Law, contract negotiations, Intellectual property/technology rights mainly.
Its a specialist skill and local knowledge (and even the right to advise in some cases) is key.
That said - a lot of the concepts are global and local laws tend not to differ that much.
The EU do seem to dislike the US globals, a bit like the US regulators disliking the UK banks and energy firms. Its all about which direction the money flows. Everyone is in to protectionism, they just do it in different ways. EU law tends to be fairly socialist in nature. Protect the peasant farmer from global competition etc.

We had no problem getting visas for anyone as we were bringing in people with desired skills.

 

[noseall]

And people like you are a problem, having no vision of a future outside of the EU carbuncle.

Is Ellal an industrialist?
Some on here say 'get behind Theresa May and Brexit', like we have a choice. Whoever is influencing Theresa and her band of appeasers, it's certainly not the likes of people here on DIYnot.

 

[Notch7]

Is Ellal an industrialist

Unlikely. I doubt industrialists spend their life moaning about the UK.

He probably works for the EU, some bureaucrat.

 

[noseall]

Unlikely. I doubt industrialists spend their life moaning about the UK

Oh like 40+ year old Brexiteers? Or Labour/Tory voters? Funny what makes us moan about the UK.

Found any of those anti-UK posts yet boyo?

 

[Notch7]

Found any of those anti-UK posts yet boyo?

Yup, plenty. Thanks for asking

 

[noseall]

Yup, plenty. Thanks for asking

Oh yes, gasbag must have put half a dozen up today. He is a bitter old codger. Brexit and the Tories must be such a disappointment to you and your chums.

Poor old Notch.

 

[ellal]

Unlikely. I doubt industrialists spend their life moaning about the UK.

Industrialists (corporates) refer to the UK as 'Treasure Island' - because it's so easily ripped off!