[radu_floricica]

Well, you have a natural experiment on this. People in western europe have a solid welfare net, with programs allowing them to effectively have cycles of work/welfare. Eastern Europe doesn't. Work market is open and free.

What is happening? You have lots of work migration from Romania to UK where both parties are very happy: employers would much rather hire people that are there to work and make money, as opposed to people that are just clocking their 12 months. And employees are happy to work hard and make a lot of money.

I'm not venturing to comment on what conclusions should be drawn from this, but I do caution against knee-jerk ones. On one hand the system seems to have self-balanced nicely. On another, it's basically taking advantage on the east-west difference, and that has an obvious time limit.

[AdrianB1]

Actually what you say is probably what you believe to be true, but it is not: in Western Europe there is a safety net, but it does not work that simple so you work and take a break, with such a work history you can't get any credit to buy a house or a car or anything more that what you can afford in cash, not even an above average smartphone. The safety net works if you lose your job, not if you quit when you want a long vacation. In some countries the money you get are very close to the minimum wage, in others the difference is big enough that you want to work to have some money to get out with the friends once a week.

[radu_floricica]

Well, that's not very different from what I'm saying. Working for a year, getting fired then coasting half a year on minimum welfare plus a bit of savings - this sounds plausible (if not very comfortable) based on what you're saying as well.