Re-Employment of an Employee

 The employer shall at the local employment office inquire, whether or not the employee still is registered as jobseeker at the area’s Employment and Economic Development Office (TE-toimisto).

The obligation is also applied to a transferee in connection with a business transfer in the situations where the transferor has terminated the employment agreements to end before the time of transfer.

If the employer also has laid off employees, the laid off employees must be offered the new work first, before it is offered to the employees whose employment relationships have been terminated. Furthermore, the part time employees’ right to additional work must be considered before the re-employment obligation takes effect. When there are both employees that could be re-employed and part-time employees that could receive additional work, the part-time employees must be offered the work.

The former employee shall have the preference to the open position even if he/she is less qualified for it than an applicant seeking for the job. However, the terms and conditions of the employment relationship do not have to be the same as they were before.

The employer is obliged to offer work to an employee whose employment has been terminated on production-related or economic grounds if the employer needs new workforce for the same or similar tasks within four months of the termination of the employee's employment and if the employee is seeking employment at that time. However, if the terminated employee's employment relationship had lasted for at least 12 years without interruption, the reemployment period is six months. If the employment relationship is governed by a collective agreement, any provisions of the collective agreement that differ from the above provisions on the obligation to rehire must also be checked.