Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Disagree.
Many industries have slow downs and have to fire large amounts of staff, regardless of their competence. For example, my brother is an engineer and was working at a mining company. There was a slow down in copper prices. One day they laid of 1/3 of the office. A month later another 1/3 got laid off, including him. It took him over a year to find another job. He was totally competent and has kept the job he found for about 7 years now.
Many industries also constantly deal with structuring issues. For example, you may need 20 people with 5 years of experience, but only 5 people with 10 years or more of experience. or vice versa.
Lots of totally competent people experience layoffs in many industries. Job security is a big thing.
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Layoffs are different than getting fired for being incompetent. I was in a group at an O&G company where 98 out of 102 people got laid off over a 2 year period (exploration group in a down cycle). Some were incompetent but mostly it was the normal mix of people. Teachers (and public service in general) doesn't have that risk which is a benefit.
I'm aware of one teacher who is a somewhat-functioning alcoholic and has been teaching high school in Calgary for years, getting shunted from building to building instead of getting fired. This person shouldn't be teaching kids, and it's a terrible deal for the other teachers, who always end up picking up the slack. That's not a feature for anyone except the people who are awful.