Employers can fire you at-will, without cause, in America. It is traditionally considered good practice for an employee to give an employer two weeks notice before quitting a job, so that they have time to try and fill your position. It is not the case the other way around. If your company decides they need to trim the ranks tomorrow, you may walk in at 9:00am and be told you are no longer needed and escorted out of the building by security with a box of your belongings at 9:05am. The only protections are that you can not be fired do to discrimination based on gender, age, religion, or ethnicity. In some states, you can not be fired over sexual orientation (but in about 30 of the 50 states, that is not protected and you can therefore be fired for being gay).

The protections are rather meaningless, however. How are you going to prove that you were fired because you are too old or because you're a woman or because you aren't the right religion, if your employer says "no, we just fired her because she smelled really bad" or "we fired her for her poor work performance".

Of course (other than protecting against discrimination), I'm not sure what the alternative is. If I'm writing the paychecks, I should be able to determine how many people I need in my company and when I no longer need them -- whether due to finances or simply not liking them. Why should I be forced to keep someone on the payroll for weeks or months beyond when I can afford them or be forced to deal with someone in the office for weeks or months after they have worn out their welcome?

My employer is free to hire or fire me at will and I'm free to find another job. They're private entities with obligation to provide for me or look after my well-being.

I know there are other differences, too. For example, in America, we consider vacation time to be something for professionals who have put in their dues while paid vacation seems to be issued to employees along with their office chair straight out of the gate in a lot of other countries. My mother is in her fifties and still has no paid vacation at her work. If she were to come visit me, she would have to take time off of work (meaning a big hit to the pay check for that month). Same goes for both of my siblings.

On the other hand, a professional with fifteen or twenty years of experience and a college degree can earn ten days of vacation per year, where I work (though not immediately, you only accrue vacation time fast enough to get two weeks a year of vacation once you have worked at this company for at least seven years). On top of that, we have six or seven company holidays (New Years, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas).

Again, I don't really have a problem with that, either. I mean, why should I get paid when I'm not working? If my employer wants to entice me to their company or keep me at their company and in high spirits by offering to pay me to take time away from work, then that's their decision and it's great. But I don't see a particular reason that they should be obligated to compensate me for time I'm not spending on them.