Termination of an Employment Relationship at the Employee’s Initiative
An employee may terminate his/her employment without any particular reason. He/she is not obliged to notify the employer of the reasons for terminating the employment. The notice period commences when the employer receives the employee’s notice of termination. For further information see [General Notice Periods].
If the employee terminates his/her employment, the employer is naturally not obliged to provide the employee with training, to reassign or to re-employ him/her.
It is usually not possible for the employee to terminate a fixed term employment relationships by giving notice, unless agreed upon when entering into the agreement. If the employee ceases to work during a fixed term employment relationship, he/she must compensate the employer by an amount equivalent to his/her salary for the remainder of fixed term employment term.
An employee may cancel an employment agreement regardless of it is valid until further notice or a fixed term agreement, if the employer has severely and grossly breached the terms and conditions of the employment relationship. Such a situation may be e.g. significant negligence regarding salary payments, or severe endangering of occupational safety. When an employee cancels the employment agreement, the employment relationship ends immediately. The employee must give the employer an opportunity to express his/her views on the employee’s decision to cancel the employment agreement.
The employee may cancel his/her employment agreement to end with immediate effect during the trial period. In this case, the employee is not obliged to give any reasons for canceling the agreement. For information see [Trial Period].
If the employer has been absent from work for a period of seven days or more without notifying the employee any reasons thereto, the employee may treat the employment agreement as canceled. In practice, this provision is rarely applied.
An employee who is laid off may always terminate his/her employment agreement to end immediately during the layoff period. This right is not dependent on the length of the layoff, but if the employee is aware of the expiry of the layoff. If so, he/she must use his/her right to terminate at the latest seven days before the expiry. For the last seven days before returning to work, the employee may terminate his/her employment relationship to terminate using his/her regular notice period. For further information, see [Layoffs].
The employee must give the employer his/her termination notice in person. If that is not possible, the employee may give the notice in writing or electronically.