Better for whom? I think most people sleep better knowing that they can't be let go for no reason, no notice and no severance tomorrow.
Yes, you can lay off people in Germany, and France, and Italy. But there are rules, notice periods, and mandatory severances, as well as often (country dependent) consultation periods. In what way is that worse for the employee?
It's worse because people don't want to hire in those countries and the conjecture here is also that layoffs are unrelated to productivity, so there is nothing you can personally do to avoid getting laid off except having a family.
So it's worse for people who are productive in their jobs.
We were approached by a French startup looking for an acquihire and well, French labor law was a big reason not to do it (not because the people at the startup weren't good, but because staffing an Eng office around them was seen as too risky).
To some extent perception is reality here; we didn't really know that much about French labor laws, but the reputation and uncertainty is the issue.
I'm not saying there should be no rules but saying "you can't lay off Employee A because he has kids, you have to lay off Employee B instead because they don't" with absolutely no consideration of work product is pretty asinine on its face.
Laying people off is a business decision - forcing a company to justify that from a business context is probably a Good Thing, but injecting weird social requirements on top of that is silly.
It makes sense if you consider the social cost of having children live through their parents' layoff.
Meanwhile businesses enjoy the privilege of operating in a country where contracts are enforced and people are educated. In exchange they're expected to not treat their employees like cattle - that's not a lot to ask IMHO.
What social cost? You should not be so invested in your job that getting layoffs would have any social costs. There might be economic costs, but there are many ways to handle that so they don't become social costs.
Yes, you can lay off people in Germany, and France, and Italy. But there are rules, notice periods, and mandatory severances, as well as often (country dependent) consultation periods. In what way is that worse for the employee?