I think you're missing the point, with or without intention.
"Comfortable" doesn't mean that they have a nice house and are happy with their life at work. Comfortable in this context means they no longer have any concern about their own job performance, knowing they have a "sure thing" and underperform in their duties.
Good point. But I wasn't responding to the GGP's central argument, only to the implication that it's bad when employees get too comfortable.
In particular, I'm ranting against the use of the word "comfortable" for describing unmotivated/shitty employees. It's perfectly achievable to have a company that consists of people who are motivated, comfortable, and extremely productive.
It's a ridiculous Americanism that the only way to motivate employees is by making them "uncomfortable" (eg through fear of losing their jobs, like your example, or through other means).
What is the source for higher standard of living in US compared to Europe?
In most of the indexes I have seen, some European countries are ahead of the US, and some are behind. Countries previously in the Soviet union are still lagging compared to western and northern europe.
The median American is richer than the median European (in basically any large country).
The SpaceX employees that got laid off are going to get other jobs and continue making more money and having more money to spend than their European counterparts.
Edit: A few reasons. One is that, since it's easier to switch jobs, good employees have more leverage. Another is that, since it's easier to fire bad employees, the expected value of a new employee is higher and you can afford to pay them more.
I think a big part of American prosperity is a result of companies being able to fire people. It's probably the most important bit of employment non-regulation that this country has, and it's a big aspect in which America is more worker-friendly than European countries. Other missing regulations, like working hours limits, vacation time regulations, don't benefit workers as much (or at all).
Standards of living is complex, more of a vector field than a single scalar.
“Western” Europe is on average rich, Eastern Europe is still recovering from Soviet control and brain-drain. But even Western Europe is spikey, old Welsh coal-mining towns are poor, the old universities are rich.
Even apart from the location income variability, what money gets you varies; health costs much less in the UK than the USA, housing is cheaper in poor places than rich places — even PPP exchange rates aren’t perfect because the ratio of two different goods isn’t constant.
> Comfortable in this context means they no longer have any concern about their own job performance, knowing they have a "sure thing" and underperform in their duties.
There might be multiple things going on here though. While I'm sure there are people who will settle into a job and underperform because they are virtually guaranteed their position, I'm guessing there are a lot more people in a situation where compensation isn't even matching inflation/CoL. In the latter situation the employee may just not care since the company doesn't care enough to compensate them 'fairly'. Depending on a lot of factors it may be difficult for them to find a new job somewhere else, so outwardly it might look like they're just 'comfortable' and underperforming.
If your employees are performing worse than initially, then what are you paying them training for? And getting more comfortable in their position should usually reduce friction around their job and have more experience, so they can do their job better..
