If I get a written warning, is this a reason good enough to start looking for employment elsewhere?

To those of you not in America. Is it different where you are?

Germany here. We have explicit laws protecting workers.

If the company wants to terminate your contract, then there are only a limited number of specific reasons that are allowed. And then they must observe a notice period usually (1-2 months). The worker can easily go to court against it (costs are moderate) to have it checked.

If they want to fire you immediately (all subsidiaries of foreign corporations usually want that, and most of the German big corpos too), they can suspend you from working, but you still get your pay until the end of the notice period, or you can make a termination agreement that ends the contract immediately and you get all that money (plus maybe a little more, negotiable) at once.

And there is another way: if you have severely violated your duties, then they can terminate you immediately, without paying any longer.

But it is only with very serious violations, where they can argue that it isn’t tolerable for the company to have to endure you any longer. Many such events actually go to court afterwards, so they really have to be careful to do it right.

If the violation was not so severe, they can give you an official warning, usually in writing. You can also go to court against the warning, and the court can nullify it, if it was wrongful.

If you have received a warning and it was valid and afterwards you do the same violation again, then they can also terminate you immediately. And again, you can go to court to have it checked, like above.