Well, in europe there are state funded furlough or short working schemes in every country, the EU supports those with a few hundred billion of Euros additionally to the hundreds of billions the countries put up themselves. Those are not specific for aviation but available for the whole economy. Which explains the fairly low rise in unemployment. On the other hand, a furlough program like US airlines do regularly is not the norm.
In my base we are in the process of firing quite a few crews (both cabin and flight deck), those fired have the right to return if there are openings within the company, slightly but not completely preferential to outsiders and that is limited to 36 months, there is no right to return by law at all, and of course, they will do get a new starting date, eliminating all prior time in the company. However, due to local working law, and remember, working law is not unified in the EU, length of service (or seniority) is just one of 5 elements that have to be taken into account when deciding who to fire, and is the second lowest score on the list.