Perfectly common in large parts of Europe. I also have a 3 months notice period, which is pretty much the standard here in Sweden for tech workers or other highly-qualified occupations. For very senior positions, 6 months isn't unheard of.

It goes both ways of course, my employer is also bound by the 3 month period in case they want to fire me.

How does getting a new job work? You tell the new company that you have to give 3 months notice? That's some long term planning on the part of the hiring company.

Yes exactly. Sometimes they ask you if you can negotiate with your employer to shorten this period, which is often the case.

Of course, they would rather it was shorter, but hiring is already a multi-months long process in most cases, so a few more months is inconvenient, but not the end of the world. If you need someone now, you hire contractors.

Interesting. Does it go for firing as well? Is it very hard to fire someone without providing the 3 months notice?

You would have to prove cause to fire without notice.

Also, depending on the country, firing/layoffs can be difficult without cause (and often even with cause) (e.g. you can't layoff someone at will, you might need to prove that you have an economic downturn before downsizing). But this varies way more between countries as far as I know.

That was my thought. It's typical in Canada that an employer will pay you out for the rest if your two weeks or whatever, and in the U.S I don't know, but have it really favours the business. I'm still at abloss as to how this works in what is apparently most of Europe. Notice is more like 2 or 3 weeks.

Don't forget that the notice period applies to all companies and all employees. So the whole culture expects that, and works with the long lead times.

Can't speak for Sweden, but we do pretty much exactly that with our India team. They have to give notice well in advance, and so when we hire a new team member we have to do so with the understanding that it will probably be a few months before they join the team.

Yes, but that's nothing unusual when the entire industry expects that. The last time I changed jobs, I signed a contract at the end of March, to start in August. That was the three month notice period plus most people are on vacation in July, so my new company would rather have me in August.

There are contractor agencies filling the niche of providing employees on short notice (and usually for a short period), but generally having people begin 3 months later is just something everyone expects and factors into their processes.

The average length of time people spend at a single job is also longer than in the US.

It goes both ways, the employer has to give the employee 3 months notice as well.

But this is for when both of them can't find a mutual solution. You can always agree to terminate the contract earlier, if both parties agree.

At least that is how it works in Germany.

Same in Poland — after 2y on a permanent job contract the leave is 3 months. It goes both ways. I can be shorter if both parties agree.

Yes, if both parties agree, you can leave at once, otherwise employer can sue you for damages or lost profits (if damages are small, they don't bother) and you don't have unemployment benefits.

This isn’t particularly crazy in Europe. It indeed goes both ways.

In my experience it's also the same in Latin America, but the notice period is normally of 1-2 months rather than 3-6 months.

I had a 6 month notice period in one role, 3 months isn't uncommon for senior roles, in the UK at least.

I guess it just seemed so implausible to me. As in, what happens if 2 weeks or 4 months in you just decide that the job is sufficiently ill-suited? Is there typically a trial period of equal time that precedes such an agreement?

What would be the practical consequences to the employee if they break that notice period in UK, i.e. stop coming to work (or, especially now with Covid, simply stop doing the remote work) sooner than these 3 months have passed?

I suspect you could be sued by your employer. Mind you I've never heard of anyone being sued in that way - can't imagine it would be worth it for the employer unless they could demonstrate a significant financial loss.

I investigated this once (while I was sitting around doing not much during a 3 month notice period, funnily enough). It's as you say, the breach of a contract is something where the employer would have to sue you for damages, and if you're sitting around not doing much, it's going to be hard to argue that losing you has caused them harm, much less enough to make it worth suing over.

I didn't break the contract anyway out of some combination of feeling like it was breaking a promise and the worry that Cambridge is a small town.

while I agree that this is common in Europe, if the company ceases to exist, what good is the 3 months notice for the employee? If he/she has any options, I'd leave asap and not worry about amicable terms with a soon to be non-existent entity.

Fair point - in that case I suspect that would be highly dependent on whether there are any assets remaining in the company and how the local legal system treats employees as creditors.

Mind you - if the company is going down the tubes they are highly unlikely to enforce any job contracts.