[trashtester]

They do. And in some countries it's even about as easy as in the US. I wasn't granular enough.

_Some_ countries in Europe have very strong worker protection laws, probably correlated to trade union participation rate:

   https://qery.no/trade-unions-worldwide/

For instance, if you want to do layoffs in Sweden, you probably have to coordinate it with union representatives before even making it public. Firing is even harder.

Another factor that may also apply to the US, is that if the people you want to get rid of disproportionally belong to some demographic groups or other identity groups, have medical conditions or have participated in disruptive activism, etc, claiming that they are fired for bad performance (even if true) makes the risk of bad press significantly worse.

Exactly what traits risk come with such risks may very from place to place.