The reputation for near-unfireable employment reaches people long before they arrive, and it shapes how they react when a settlement agreement lands on the desk. What matters is which route the employer is actually taking, because the wording of a negotiated exit can decide whether unemployment benefit follows.
Harder than in the US, but "impossible" overstates it. An employer needs a valid legal ground: redundancy or two years of illness go through the UWV, personal grounds like poor performance or a broken working relationship go through the subdistrict court (kantonrechter), and both routes require documentation an employer often hasn't bothered to build. In practice most Dutch dismissals happen a third way — a vaststellingsovereenkomst, a mutually signed settlement agreement — because the court and UWV routes are slow and outcome-uncertain, and employers prefer the certainty of a negotiated exit. If you're offered one, the exact wording decides whether you keep your unemployment benefit (WW): it needs to state the employer took the initiative and cite a neutral reason like "difference in views," not misconduct. Get it checked before signing — juridisch loket (free legal help) or a union can review it in a single session, and a badly worded settlement can cost you months of WW.