Conversely low worker protections correlate strongly with the absence of the above.
Why do you think that is?
The European (i.e Eurozone/EU) recovery was knocked back by the raising of interest rates by the ECB in 2011.
And finally, the US did recover better because they put a lot more proportionally into stimulus (even though it wasn't enough, as later events showed).
I'm not sure that you can suggest that the flexible labour market was a cause of that (and indeed, one would have expected the UK to recover quicker than the rest of Europe then, as they have more flexible labour laws).
To be clear I'm not saying their system is superior, I think it goes too far. Poverty and what I consider labour exploitation are much more common over there. Also I think it's pretty clear now that significant increases in minimum wages don't seem to significantly increase unemployment, for example, but on severance pay particularly it's pretty clear this is a tradeoff.
There are proven links between economic insecurity and the rise of political extremism, and it's manifestly incorrect to suggest that corporate economics operates in a moral and political vacuum with no political consequences.
http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/74766/1/EPS_2018_accepted%20ver...
As far as I'm aware, that was because they printed tons of money. Money was printed in the EU too, but stopped much sooner - far too soon. As if people forgot about Keynes.
And actually I think you have some of this backwards. If you have a good social security net, you don't have to protect workers as much.
Likewise, health care is an investment in human capital. When people are ill, they can't produce.