This is the case in Denmark, some countries offer incentives to lay staff off temporarily but, generally, it isn't the case (which is why you have unbelievable levels of unemployment in Europe).
However, I know for sure that in Germany, it isn't that easy to hire and fire people on a whim. In the US this seems to be the case.
Just in case, let me also clarify this:
I don't care, if you think the American system is better than the German one. I simply made the statement that even if not all EU countries have rulings like Germany, it is surely harder to fire people on a whim.
And also the article didn't mention where this will occur.
And one particular aspect of Germany is that capacity is controlled on the way up. The reason why the US has these huge swings is because capacity isn't controlled. It isn't possible to have the upside without the downside. Germany's political economy is totally different because the US has a far higher level of competition and innovation, this isn't possible with Germany's labour market.
In Germany, there is a thing called "Kündigungsschutz"[1].
I am not sure about Ireland, but I assumed there are similar rulings.
So at least in Germany, it is not that easy, but possible.
1) http://www.rechtslexikon.net/d/kuendigungsschutz/kuendigungs...
Either way, the point is that if you have high levels of protection that should mean that it is easier to fire someone...because they have something to fall back on. That is why the UK and the US have universal welfare states. Germany does not have a universal welfare state, and the only way that is possible is by having high employment security/strong labour laws and huge companies that are profitable due to low competition. This, obviously, comes with downsides (this is why Germany has struggled with high unemployment in the past, and has things like Kurzabeit to subsidise companies even further against firing staff).
An exception to this is Denmark which has almost total union participation and very weak labour laws, they achieve this through a much more expensive system of social insurance. They have, for Europe, relatively high levels of innovation so this all offsets (you get high security and relatively high levels of innovation).