Re-Employment of an Employee

When an employer has terminated an employment relationship based on production-related or financial grounds and the employer within nine months of the termination needs new employees for the same or similar tasks which the former employee performed, the employer shall offer this work to his/her former 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 liability is always with the employer, and the former employee finding another job does not automatically free the employer from his obligation to re-employ. The obligation to re-employ only applies to employees whose employment relationships have been terminated. The employer does not have an obligation to re-employ fixed term employees or employees whose employment relationship has been cancelled based on reasons related to the employee’s person. The same applies to employees that have resigned. Furthermore, a criteria for the application of the re-employment obligation is that the employer must have terminated the employment relationship due to production-related or financial reasons or a reorganization procedure. 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. However, there is no obligation to re-employ, if the open positions are refilled through transfers within the company and no new employees are hired. 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 obligation to re-employ applies if the work offered contains same or similar tasks as the ones performed by the former employee. Tasks can usually be considered as similar, if they are comparable with the tasks performed by the former employee, and the employee possesses the knowhow, education, and former work experience based on which he/she based on those abilities could be assumed to be chosen for the job, if there were no other applicants. The re-employment obligation does not contain a training obligation. The job title does not affect the evaluation of the application of the re-employment obligation.

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, e.g. the pay can be lower than it was. The re-employment obligation is valid nine months from the termination of the employment relationship, not from the date when the notice was given. If the search of a new employee begins after the nine months’ time limit, the employer has no re-employment obligation.