I have lots of experience hiring tech people. Most of the time they turn out to be just as good as we thought they would be. But sometimes they don't. It would be terrible if it was impossible for us to let those people go.
also isn't that why trial periods exist? as in you have 3 month or so to change your mind after hiring someone/taking a job if it turns out to be a bad fit, for whatever reason, at either employer or employees initiative?
It would be terrible for businesses to fire people arbitrarily. I'd rather give more rights to individuals than to businesses, because I am biased in an anti-business way: businesses arent bounded by human lifespans or biological constraints, get preferential treatment by the American legal system, have orders of magnitude more money and political power than individuals. It's almost like the USA fought a war and chartered individual rights in a document over this kind of shit, but never imagined businesses would be more encompassing than governments.
Would it be terrible if employees could fire their employers arbitrarily?
Both parties have freedom in this arrangement, but we can find examples of both employees and employers with weak negotiating positions. I don't think that invalidates the benefits of freedoms of association.
To your point about business being bound by constraints, they absolutely are bound by the niche they operate in. As markets change, world events unfold, competitors appear, decisions are made, companies can struggle and fail, yet are typically unable to pivot.
Consider a company that makes ICE cars that can't follow the market into making EVs. Or a company that has never had competition might be in the stranglehold of "this is the way we've always done it" when a fierce competitor emerges, and won't adapt.
True, most employees typically don't have equity (so they don't share in all the upside), but they also aren't married to the company when it looks like a supertanker headed for an inevitable collision with a bridge (getting wiped out on the downside).
Off-shoring is already very prevalent in US tech work. So there certainly needs to be a balance in workers rights and business interest if those jobs are going to stay domestic. In general I agree with your perspective. But there is a harsh alternative reality that we're going to continue to face in the tech workforce.
