> What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.

The following is true for a sizable part of Europe. The flip side(s!) are:

* I can't just walk out on a job, I have to give a 4-week notice (for any reason, though. It can be anything, from "I feel like I need a new challenge" to "I hate ever single one of you motherfuckers"), during which I'm expected to do my job more or less as usual. Everyone understands you're not as motivated, no one plans for major stuff to happen during someone's N-week notice.

* My employer has a small, but very open-ended list of reasons why he's allowed to fire me, which includes things like me underperforming (but he has to give proof that this actually happened -- i.e. he needs to have an actual evaluation process, has to warn me that I'm not performing as expected first and so on), shrinking clients base which means that they literally no longer need so many people and I drew the short stick and so on.

My employer is also required to give me a four-week notice, during which he has to pay me as usual, and he also has to pay for any vacation days I didn't take in this time (the idea being that I could have lounged in Belize instead of working my sorry ass at the office).

Furthermore, if I am being fired, my employer is also required to allow me to go to interviews during business hours (for obvious reasons).

Regulations vary from one country to another, but that's the gist of it. In general:

- Notices are typically 4 weeks for non-management positions and 6 weeks for management positions. The law around here allows these periods to be longer, but not shorter than this, and they're negotiated as part of the contract.

- However, they can be skipped by mutual agreement (i.e. if I want to leave right now and my employer doesn't have a problem with that, we sign an additional paper that says we both agree to leaving without a 4-week notice and I'm out).

- They don't apply for the duration of the test period at the beginning of an employment contract (if there is one). During that period (typically 3 months), both resignations and firings are effective immediately. I did it once, it' a very refreshing feeling :-).

I work for the European branch of a relatively small American company, which is how I've come to know all this. My colleagues from the US are mesmerized whenever they hear about these things.

In Costa Rica, which follows a similar system, you can also buyout your notice period, which I think is fair for all sides.

Basically, if your notice period is 1 month, you can opt to pay the company 1 month's salary instead of having to work that time. If a company wants you gone, they pay you the equivalent wages for the notice period you were required to provide.

I think it's fair because both sides have agreed that $X amount is a fair exchange for the employees services. If those services cannot be replaced with $X then that's really the company's problem for taking advantage of the worker.

This buyout is in addition to any other severance package the worker might be receiving.

Anyways, I think it's pretty nifty as it allows the flexibility of leaving immediately, but also puts in some structure into the situation.

Consider contract employment. You agree to work for me for x months. In exchange, I agree to pay you $y. The contract outlines reasons that I can fire you and reasons that you can quit. And, if either party violates the terms of the agreement, we can go to court.

Well, to be exact, you can always go to court and dispute the termination is illegal.

Norway is standard 3 months notice. So most Norwegian developers would be unable to apply for e.g. a remote work position the US without first quitting their old job. No hedging your bets, which means that you're in effect trapped in the Norwegian labor market.

The flip side of this is that it's very difficult to get fired, even if you're not very competent.

On the employee side, I think the alternative is Two week's notice. Not exactly "slaves," but with some structure for how to resign.

In Europe, a month is typical for junior, professional jobs, with this increasing to three months for senior positions.

You can, of course, not turn up to work. But that might well make you "unreliable" if you ask for a reference later. But it's not a problem, since a new employer giving a three month notice period will expect you to be on one at present.

(The notice period during the first 6 or 12 months is often less, eg 2-4 weeks.)

In Europe, it is much higher than a month in many countries.

E.g. in Norway it is near impossible to give less than 3 months notice for permanent positions without providing additional compensation, no matter how junior the position, except for a typically 6 month trial period.

Before I'd moved to the UK, I'd never even seen an employment contract with less than 3 months.

In practice, shorter notice is often mutually agreed on with or without compensation when both sides agree it suits them, but it's very common to serve out the full 3 months.

This is true of my position in Germany as well, but from what I understand it rarely works out like that. Unless you are leaving a company at a critical juncture they likely don't want to keep an unmotivated employer there for three months. I can mutually agree with my employer to leave early if necessary.

In Norway you can mutually agree to leave early, but the employer can generally not force you to leave to the extent that there have been cases where people have insisted on coming to work against the employers will because the saw it as problematic for their professional reputation if they were forced to leave. Generally courts would tend to be sympathetic to employee concerns in cases like that unless there are very compelling reasons to keep them out (e.g. lets say they were dismissed after a violent attack on another employee or after being found stealing secrets fro the employers).