Complex legal situation meets utmost relevance: Anyone who makes mistakes when reporting mass layoffs must expect far-reaching consequences. An overview of 20 years of case law.
Mass layoff notice – this term is not just a word monster. He also describes a process that appears again and again in the judgments mentioned in the human resources management ranking of the most important employment law decisions of the year. Why? Because the labor law situation is extremely complex, cases of mass layoffs have been quite common in the recent past. With pretty much every job cut you’ve read about recently at well-known companies, sooner or later the mass layoff notice comes into play.
For all those who fortunately have not had anything to do with this recently: If there is a mass layoff – this depends on the size of the company and the number of layoffs – a report about it must be made to the employment agency in advance. Only in companies that generally employ fewer than 20 employees is there generally no obligation to submit mass layoff notices.
The mass layoff notification is considered a legal minefield and, if made incorrectly, it often leads to the nullity of all termination notices issued. No HR manager wants to have to explain that to management. Some of the ambiguities in this minefield have been clarified in recent years. In particular, the question of what actually has to be included in such an advertisement and what happens if something is missing was heard before the courts. HR managers should know this.
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What is the mass layoff notice about?
If an employer plans to make many layoffs within a short period of time, he must inform the employment agency in advance in writing. This announcement is intended to give the authority time to look for solutions, i.e. opportunities in the local labor market. There is also a blocking period attached to it: the dismissals should take effect at the earliest 30 days after receipt of a proper notification.
The following threshold values must be taken into account: In companies with generally more than 20 and fewer than 60 employees, a mass layoff already occurs if more than five employees are laid off. In companies with more than 60 and fewer than 500 employees, a mass layoff occurs if at least 10 percent or more than 25 employees are laid off. In companies with more than 500 employees, at least 30 employees would have to be laid off.
When does the mass layoff notification have to be made?
When asked about the most important changes when it comes to notification of mass layoffs, Lisa-Marie Niklas says: “I have to go a long way about that.” She is a specialist lawyer in labor law and a partner at the law firm Arqis (proper spelling ARQIS) and refers to the Junk decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) from 2005. It was not about spam emails, but about the employee Irmtraud Junk, who went to the highest European court to clarify whether her termination was effective or not.
