[paulojreis]

In Portugal, we have some "theoretically" restrictive labor laws, supposedly very protective towards the employee. Still, everyday you'll hear about someone being told that he/she should feel lucky to even have a job, let alone a salary (because, yes, unpaid stuff is also common).

My point being: labor laws are fundamental, but they don't trump a) on one hand, a bad economical situation; and b) on the other hand, a die-hard culture of constantly finding ways around the law.

[friendzis]

This, especially the second point. It does not really matter how protective labour laws are when specialist market is small enough for the option of not signing mutual contract termination agreement and waiting to be laid off by employer would be too risky and detrimental to further career path. Word of mouth is very powerful ally for higher pay grade specialists.

[pif]

You can substitute "Portugal" with "Italy" without affecting the validity of the sentence.

[wyager]

Labor scarcity is usually more important than labor laws for quality of employment.