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Tiny bit of background is useful here: The US has very lax employment regulation. You can be fired for any reason at any time. Most of Europe, the Nordic coun
by rue 15y ago
Tiny bit of background is useful here:
The US has very lax employment regulation. You can be fired for any reason at any time.
Most of Europe, the Nordic countries in particular, have stringent regulation. Continuous employment can only be terminated for cause. In the last decade or so, it has become relatively common to try to circumvent this by hiring with back-to-back temporary contracts (usually 6-12 months) which are against the spirit – and often letter – of the law; they're only supposed to be used when there is a specific reason for being temporary. This poses all kinds of problems like vacations, maternity-/paternity leave and a general lack of life security.
Lately legislation has been discovered that allows “trial periods” to be abused: the trials are often of excessive length, 4-6 months, and people can be summarily dismissed without having to give notice (normally at least a month, often longer), vacation &c. This is obviously much more common in relatively low-skill jobs where the actual training doesn't take much of an investment.
- gm 15y ago"You can be fired for any reason at any time." I see what you are trying to say, but it's not entirely true. You can be fired for any reason, as long as it's not illegal (discriminatory, because of a disability, a pregnancy, whistleblower, union organizer, etc). This is why often, when you get fired, the company is better off not telling you why (cover their asses). At least that's what counsel of some companies would say. I've seen the other side of the coin in countries that have employee protections in place. Where it can be abused (ie, everyone is an independent contractor), employees lose as they have no benefits. Where it cannot, employees lose out because it's not worth it to invest in hiring people. Overall, IMO it is bad overall to give employees too much protection. In this aspect, I think the American system is as close to perfect as it gets.