I agree with you on most counts; I believe in employee protection but again not without limits. If you have a video of an employee sleeping or watching porn or facebooking most of the time for a month you should be able to fire without benefits if you have a dossier. In that case the state should pick up the bill to takw care of the person not the company. In general I think the state should pick up the tab from our tax money anyway, not the company as it does prevent people from hiring. It did not actually help much weakening the laws because they are still way too strong. If the state would just pick up the tab it is solved on all counts. But then again I am for basic income.

Edit: and I just do not buy it... I would hire in Spain right now if the laws were more like the US. I cannot afford to risk hiring and getting a bad apple or not being able to afford her later on. I know many startups in PT/ES with that attitude. So maybe the NL system were a dossier will allow you to fire or just have the state pay from the taxes the company pays per employee anyway.