For Yahoo News Ted Rall has a column arguing that the U.S. should have the same rules against layoffs that Europe does. The article is philosophical and makes the usual liberal arguments against labor mobility.
What Rall doesn't say is the consequences of making layoffs and terminations somewhere between difficult and impossible, as they are in France. The main consequence is that firms don't want to hire workers. As noted here, the unemployment rate in France has averaged nearly 5% higher than the U.S. rate over the last 15 years.
Firms that can let workers go when no longer needed are willing to hire workers when they are needed. Firms that cannot let workers go in tough times don't hire extra workers in good times.
French firms have found that they are better off to give up market share and hold their work force levels down to what they will need in hard times. The result of this is anemic economic growth in what should be good times.
The really talented young people in France aspire to government jobs. The French private sector is completely shackled with government regulations. A major reason the U.S. is the economic engine of the world is its labor mobility; something that, for all of its costs, we cannot afford to give up.
