In the US you have no such guarantee, it's completely at the pleasure of your employer.
I could walk into work this morning, get laid off, and escorted out of the building without notice. That's it, done, no more salary. To make it even worse, you also lose the subsidized health insurance. My employer pays about 60% of the cost for my family, so my monthly premiums would jump from $800 to nearly $2000 a month at the same time my income drops to near zero.
Sure there's unemployment payments, but they're usually only a fraction of your previous salary, and are often capped to a maximum by your individual state.
Well, legally that's true, but in practice, this makes you "not a team player", or something like that, and you won't be able to use the company as a reference ever.
You have to give at least two weeks warning to the employer if you want to leave, but if they want to fire you, they just show you the door without warning. Note that the employer may then just fire you anyways, so your courteous notice results in two weeks without pay. For some reason, this is considered fine, even in industries where it's a laborer's market.
While there are certainly legal differences across countries, I think the stigma applies universally. It's weird, especially considering many workplaces seem to want to project an image of cohesiveness and team spirit and what not, but when it comes to practicalities all of that goes out the window in favor of the bottom line. (I'm not saying the bottom line is unimportant, just that the warm fuzzy feeling you're trying to instill is worth nothing when the man comes around. The cake, as it were, is a lie.)
I could walk into work this morning, get laid off, and escorted out of the building without notice. That's it, done, no more salary. To make it even worse, you also lose the subsidized health insurance. My employer pays about 60% of the cost for my family, so my monthly premiums would jump from $800 to nearly $2000 a month at the same time my income drops to near zero.
Sure there's unemployment payments, but they're usually only a fraction of your previous salary, and are often capped to a maximum by your individual state.
Welcome to capitalism ;)