Recent: Reader's Post: How the EPO Silently Halves Salaries of Senior EPO Staff (or Gets Rid of Them)

Reference: The Golden Cage

Summary: As the EPO runs out of work questions remain about what will happen to working conditions (if any workers are left who are satisfied at all)

THE OUTSOURCER in chief António Campinos starts his fifth week on the job tomorrow. We are still hearing rumours and speculations about layoffs. In the meantime senior staff is being driven out and/or forced to take cuts. This would be unthinkable somewhere like the USPTO, let alone anywhere in Europe, but the EPO is above the law.

"We're not sure that the EPO is even recruiting anymore."The occasional commentary by Märpel, which/who typically writes in the weekends (we're guessing it's an EPO insider), now tackles glassdoor.com reviews (recall our article "Job Applicants at the EPO Disappointed, Reference Made in Interview to Slavery"). "Therefore," Märpel wrote a few hours ago, "as could be expected, the EPO experiences great difficulties in finding candidates when recruiting."

We're not sure that the EPO is even recruiting anymore. It's mostly pretending to. We have heard it from several directions/sources and we have not seen the EPO openly advertising jobs for a number of months. That's not the usual thing. In Märpel's words:

In a comment posted on the last article, "Seeking job" noted that the reviews about the EPO on glassdoor.com criticised that the EPO did not respect the rule of law. Glassdoor is only the tip of the iceberg. Märpel asked around. University graduates are organised in trade associations and these are not publicly accessible on the Internet. But they help spread the word.

It normally works as follows: -trade associations keep lists of their members -if you are a member and seek a job at the EPO, you look on the list for somebody already working at the EPO and contact them -that person tells you his or her opinion of the place.

Dear readers who know what goes on recruitment-wise, please get in touch with us securely; we need to know what Campinos plans to do when impending patents/applications backlog runs out. It won't be long before that happens. What will happen then? ⬆