Here's what I don't get - I am intereviewing for a Scandinavian company

[Taverner]

Their laws require that they offer all of the benefits to their foreign employees that they offer back home. This includes 6-8 weeks of paid vacation a year, top of the line medical benefits (and supplemental benefits to employees in countries with health care,) paid paternity/maternity, and a bunch of other good benefits.

So do American companies do this for their foreign employees? Can I hear a big "noooooooooooooo"!

You know, for all Apple claims to "think different" they sure love their slave labor in China and Vietnam.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. (sigh) Sometimes I wish I lived in a Scandinavian country. Don't make me envious. nt

[Taverner]

2. Go work for a Scandinavian company if you can!

There are a few here

Although I don't think all Scandinavian countries have this law...Ikea sure doesn't.

[Tesha]

6. Nokia (from Finland) certainly didn't operate under this law. (NT)

[Brickbat]

13. Finland isn't Scandinavian.

[Tesha]

16. It (honestly!) depends on who you ask.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia

[Taverner]

17. Yes, I have heard both sides of the question

And know that there is much more Russian influence in Finnish culture than one might think

[w0nderer]

18. nordic vs scandinavian n/t

[Taverner]

21. 'Nordic' just means, literally, Northern

That would include the Aleut, the Inuit, Nunavut, etc...

[w0nderer]

22. well, my point was that when 'they'

in the scandinavian countries refer to nordic

they mean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries

and when they refer to scandinavian they mean

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia

generally speaking that is

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. I recently read here on DU that Target opened in one Scandinavian country, and Target...

must provide its employees over there whatever is required by their govt laws, so employees of Target over there, are living a much better life than Target employees over here.

[closeupready]

3. French companies don't do this.

At least, not the one I worked at a few years back.

[Taverner]

4. No and not all Skaninavian cos do either

Ikea, for example, does not

[w0nderer]

20. ikea is now adays owned by a netherlands foundation

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikea (swedish, sorry)

main office is in the netherlands, hence, no need to follow scandinavian law

[w0nderer]

23. self correction

not really much scandinavian law
it's either national law (swedish danish norwegian..), european (which it isn't) or international (which it isn't)

[dmallind]

5. impossible - outsourcing only robs jobs FROM the US and is invariably bad - DU tells me so. nt

[hifiguy]

7. If I had it to do over again, I'd learn Norwegian or Swedish

in college and would have gone to Scandinavia long ago. Now I am too old, tired and poor.

[david_vincent]

8. I knew a guy who did that!

A guy I knew in college actually chucked it all (without finishing his degree) and moved to Norway, where he had friends, including a girlfriend. Before he left, he tried to recruit a bunch of other guys, including me, to go along too. Wish I'd listened to him...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. A friend of mine did that, too, went to Norway on an exchange program

and never came back. When I saw her this summer, she said that she had never really planned to stay in Norway, but one opportunity led to another, and eventually she found that she had created a life for herself there.

I had three chances to expatriate in the 1970s and 1980s, and I could kick myself twice around the world for not taking them.

[Modern_Matthew]

10. It would stop a lot of outsourcing dead in its tracks. nt

[johnd83]

11. Foxconn is buying millions of robots

to replace the people that assemble the Apple (and many other) products. I am actually OK with that, I would rather have robots doing mindless tasks anyway.

[Taverner]

12. What about those with no skills?

Not everyone is a coder...

[johnd83]

15. That is a very good question

It is not really being addressed by anyone. I think it is extremely important that we keep unemployment insurance going until we figure it out. The tea party answer is to starve them because they are lazy which doesn't make sense.

[bikebloke]

14. I work for a European company.

We don't quite get the benefits they do in Europe, but it's pretty close. Considering all the years I worked with zero, I'm not complaining.