[matthewowen]

I do think that one problem with the situation in the UK is that 'getting sacked' is a real problem for your career - there's a big stigma associated with it and it can make it very hard to get your next position. If there's less of a sense of fault in dismissal, maybe that's less of a problem.

However, I'm somewhat dubious about claims of it leading to unemployment due to old and useless employees who are entrenched in their jobs - if it were, wouldn't there be more scope for new companies to emerge who weren't weighed down by those older employees? If adding a new employee did add value, wouldn't it be worth doing anyway? If those employees sacked before the magic date were in high value roles, would companies be willing to throw away their experience? I suspect that the problems ultimately stem from deeper problems than this, especially in the case of Spain and Italy - there's probably a thesis that centres around them being historically poor, agricultural countries who've artificially benefited from the EU in a way that has masked big problems in the fundamentals of their economies.