It means you get 15 paid days a year to be sick. Beyond that, you have a certain number by law (I think 60) which you can take unpaid without risk of being fired. After that, sickness is theoretically grounds for termination, but very few large employers would do that because of the bad publicity. Also most IT workers here have long-term disability insurance for 'free' from their employers, meaning that they're still making 50 or 60 percent of their usual total comp for as long as they're sick after being fired.

"In Scandinavia, you set a mutual duration of notice for both parties when signing the initial contracts to start working. For IT jobs, the standard is 2-3 months."

I will gladly take a capped number of paid sick days to be able to leave in 2 weeks on good terms, and whenever I want otherwise. I will also take the lower unemployment rate that comes as a result of employers being unafraid to hire because they can easily fire. People seem to think labor flexibility is purely for the benefit of the employer. Not so. Short notice periods are a worker right, one Americans have and Europeans don't.