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I'm genuinely shocked by this. I'm all for free market mechanisms but come on ... a system without strong employee protection must be naturally prone to abuse.

• SamReidHughes 12y ago
  Other effects such as the increased willingness to hire people cancel out the bad(?) effects. If by abuse you mean some advantage of negotiating position that the employer could use to eke out long hours (or some other surprise change in the job description), well, the increased ease of firing is canceled out by the increased ease of the employee deciding to get a new job. The degree to which this is the case depends on the job market at the time. You might also observe that a system that has what you call strong employee protection is also prone to abuse (or what you might call people taking advantage of their negotiating position), in the other direction. Maybe it's more important in America to be proactive about avoiding living in a one-company town. Advantage of negotiating position is usually expressed through compensation rates because it's bad business to make employees hate the company after they already have a job. But, you know, I work in software and can't tell what it's like being a barista or farm worker. Edit: and please correct my misunderstanding if you mean something else by abuse. That's just the only meaning I can think of.