> 3 months is nothing really. Half a year is more the start of negotiation in a comparable place in Europe.

Employment law differs wildly from country to country, there is no general European labour law (with the exception of the working time directive). For instance, I live in Ireland where you can fire anyone for any reason for the first six months, and are not required to pay redundancy until after they've been employed two years.

The statutory redundancy limits on wages are super low for tech, so it's almost free to do layoffs. Additionally, firing people is not really very hard, you just need to have a reason, and follow a process. You need to give a verbal warning, then a written warning, and then fire.

You can't fire people because they don't suck up to you, but you can basically find a reason if you want to.

I recognise that Germany/Austria/France are different, but that's exactly my point, there is very little common European labour law.

> I recognise that Germany/Austria/France are different, but that's exactly my point, there is very little common European labour law.

So, I don't live in Germany but I tried to look into how things work there a little deeper.

It seems to have a lot in common with what you describe about Ireland actually.