Is it smart to change jobs considering the possible recession? (EU)

With some extreme exceptions, making personal decisions based on wide trends doesn't make much sense. Your influence over you own life always tends to be much stronger than the influence of trends at the margins.

If in a recession 20% of people lose their job (exhagurating for the sake of the argument), you have a lot of agency in making sure that you are in the 80% who don't. And even if you're so unlucky you end up in a company that goes bankrupt or has to cut 80% of jobs or anyone hired in the last year or something like that, you are still likely to be able to find another job just as easily as you found this one.

On the other hand, never taking any (reasonable, calculated) risk is the surest way to erode, over time, whatever advantage you have previously earned and let your career converge towards the average and below it.

In 2008 one of the companies I worked at got rid of 4 established employees even though they'd just taken 4 new employees on.

Recessions are often an excuse to get rid of the problem people, not new employees. It really does depend.

I think people tend to overestimate the safety of their job.

Companies can go bust entirely, they can cut entire business units or entire teams. Even within your team you may be viewed as "a good employee" but still be deemed less important than someone else, or just much less costly to let go.

Irrespective of a recession, I would look at the growth prospects of the team/business/company of a prospective employer vs. those of my current employer, and their reasons for hiring.

I've been considering the same - I could add maybe 30%-40% on to my salary based on my career direction over the past 2-3 years but a good friend cautioned that I'd switch out being in an established role that would pay me out if I were made redundant for a better paid role that could get rid of me with little notice if things went badly.

Last in, first out.

There are other factors besides salary at work that are leading me to consider options right now so this isn't purely financially motivated, but my decision is that the broader context right now to be telling me to weather it out where I am for the short to medium term.

The fact that you are reading Hacker News implies you won't have much trouble finding _some_ work even in the middle of a recession.

Also, in my opinion, it's better to get fired from an exciting job than from a boring one.

The best recession proofing is your own cash cushion. Whatever helps you build that faster and stronger with sufficient “Work is pleasant/interesting/etc” is the right choice.

Right now is a fantastic time to look for jobs with a 30%+ bump in salary. Even if it all goes to shit in just 3 months (it won’t), that’s an extra full month in your personal safety net. Better still: Having that stronger job on your resume makes it easier to find the next next job.

I think individuals get cut for two reasons:

1. You aren’t a good employee as individual.

2. Cost cutting measures to entire company functions.

I think in both cases you should know whether your position is in imminent danger.

I asked myself the same question when the pandemic started. At that time, I had already been working around 4 years for the same company, and the raises I was getting were not that great. I had the opportunity to change to a new job and get around 20% of salary raise... but I didn't because of the pandemic (it was the first time in my life I saw a disease making entire countries to lockdown and what not, so it was a bit scary to me). I regret not having switched jobs at that time.

Now, I switched jobs 4 months ago. I had the same question in my head "is this the right time?". So far, I don't regret.

Is it actually true that if there were big layoffs you would make it? Companies will often lay off an entire part of the business or more expensive employees though it’s also true that it’s common to let the most recent hires go first.

Is your idea that your current company is less likely to lay anyone off or that the companies have similar futures but you think it would be safer for you to have more tenure?

A few other ideas would be to: try to work out how much money you’d want to move. Can the other company pay you that much? Could you apply to some other company and get an offer for that much? If you take the new job and live like you’re on the previous pay, can you put the difference towards saving in case you get laid off.

In general I guess most people are a little too risk averse. So maybe you should take the leap (or try applying for other jobs; I like the argument here: http://benkuhn.net/outliers/ ) or maybe you should try to get into a position where you feel better able to take risks like this, e.g. by having more savings or something to fall back on.

Last in first out is very situational. Note I just moved company for similar situations and so I am obviously bias. Anyway my thinking was: - is this a hyper growth company that has 2-5x its headcount in the pandemic? - is this a unionised workforce?

first point: companies like coin base were rapidly growing into new Geos and verticals. These were teams with maybe a handful of old employees and then a sea of new ones. So when the vertical or geo got axed, just by the numbers a lot of “new” people got axed. Same story for Snapchat (their newish gaming dept) and TikTok (gaming again).

Second point: labour laws are very different to what they were a few decades ago. It’s no longer really expensive to get rid of old employees. I have no data here but my experience is that weakened labour laws have made firing more performance based and you know the performance of your existing work force best. If you move and are seen immediately as the future direction of the company, you are gold dust.

Just my 2 cent

Coming from the experience at my current company, competent programmers are the hardest to hire out of all professions, so they avoid firing them at all costs, I'd wager even if a downsizing happened, they'd avoid firing coders as much as possible.

It sounds like you are bored in your current role and the prospect of more exciting work is your main driver.

I'd probably go for it, as long as I had enough savings to cover me if they had to let people go, and that I was reasonably confident I could find something else if I had to.

For my whole working life, most of my jobs have lasted no more than 2 years, due to a combination of working for small companies & start ups, mergers, the dot com crash, redundancies and contracting. So finding a new job for me holds no particular fear. I do live in London though, so there's a lot of opportunity.

First thing I would check would be to see the new company is profitable or it is well funded and on its way to profitability. If that is the case, I would consider switching for sure.

There's already a lot of good advise here. One other thing you could consider is the financial stability of the new place. Is there any data available that suggests its a stable place (stable customer base and stable revenue) and will likely not be affected by the recession as much? Or is it a business which depends more on external hype and capital to stay alive? The latter would be more risk, but in the end both things can work out well or fail.

While being new is a factor within a group, many layoffs focus on which groups and roles to cut.

My general ordered preference is to try to be in a buisiness that won't be affected, then a group that isn't affected within a buisiness that is, then I may prefer to be a person that is affected within a group that is, it really depends on how miserable the job is going to be which may not actually compare favorably to finding a new one in a recession.

If you live a debt free lifestyle, you will not worry about this as much.

If I got laid off tomorrow, I would look forward to spending more time with my family.

I wouldn't treat it any differently, ensuring I have enough 'in the bank' should finding something new a problem

I've been too employable for most of my life -- walking out and figuring it out later.

It's worth making sure you have enough hang time while waiting for another vine to swing on.

Work still needs done and you're presumably still employable, recession or not the same metrics work

If you're going to switch jobs at all, now would be a good moment.

The position you mentioned is likely part of a backlog which accumulated over the vacation season.

In any case I personally decided to stay in my not particularly exciting and underpaid job (considering that offers I get average around +50%) so I can attest to the fact that it's not the end of the world if you do so.

If you think you'd like the new job more than your current job, I say you should go for it. If you are concerned about recession or layoffs, try to use the extra money you're making to build up some savings. Also, the new job will probably look good on your resume if you actually needed to look for work soon, right?

If it's better paid and more interesting work, Id just take it and deal with the fall out when/if it happens.

I just recently (few days ago) switched jobs, for a 66% pay increase. Just a datapoint to help you.

If by safe you mean recession proof, whatever that means to you, I think whether or not you switch comes down to what is going to make you happier and if you perceive risk, in your worst case situation can You afford to be without work for a while. Best of luck

"upcoming recession"

Maybe, maybe not.

are they both public companies or do you have access to their financial statements?

strong balance sheet, profitability etc. go with one that is the strongest.

quit being a pussy and just take the gig. do you want to be 90 years old always thinking "what if?"