Recently I saw a post of a guy jumping between two cars – from one shitty employer to the next – and the caption “having 7 different jobs a year”. This in turn means for the company that it has 7 people on the same role in a year. Because you can willy-nilly hire and fire. That's why you can also see signs with “you are all replaceable”-
But what if you couldn't fire?
German labour laws make it quite difficult for companies to fire people. You have a trial period (of 3 to 6 months) where it is easier, but afterwards you have the workers you have. And many seem to try to make the best out of it.
In my local supermarket I have seen the same faces for years now and I asked, how long they worked there. 2 more than 15 years, one more than 25… much longer periods than an equivalent store in the US. And look at the benefits! The employees have stable jobs, there is actually something like a loyalty towards their employer, because they actually seem to care. And the chairs.. forget the stools! The cashiers sit in nice, comfortable seats with back support.
High turnover rates are extremely expensive. The companies have training costs, search costs, the employees potentially relocating costs. But there are also heavy emotional costs such as getting to know the people, stress that you might lose your job, looking for new jobs and all of that all over again…
What if you made your labor laws stricter. Make it hard to fire people and try to work with the ones you have. You'll be surprised that you'll end up with better results than the disgraceful, machine-like attitude of “everyone is (a) replaceable (spare part)”