Glossary

The dismissal letter can promise 0.5 monthly salaries per year if you do not sue.

Money for losing the job.

The public office that pays unemployment benefit and helps with the job search.

If a court finds the dismissal invalid, the job never ended.

Insurance money from the Agentur für Arbeit after a job ends: 60% of your former net pay, 67% with a child.

The company keeps paying your salary until the end date, but you no longer come to work.

If your contract ends before the notice period would have, and you get severance, your benefit rests until the notice period would have ended..

An agreement between the company and the Betriebsrat that softens a layoff, usually with a severance formula.

If you give up your job yourself, the Agentur für Arbeit pays nothing for 12 weeks.

A clause that lets you leave before the end date when you find a new job.

Register with the Agentur für Arbeit 3 months before your job ends.

Nobody can make you sign on the spot.

You have 3 weeks from the day the letter arrives to sue.

The company must give notice ahead of time.

The public office that must approve the dismissal of a severely disabled employee before the company sends it.

In a company with 10 or fewer employees the general dismissal protection does not apply.

After 6 months in a company with more than 10 employees, a dismissal needs a valid reason.

Some employees are almost impossible to dismiss: during pregnancy and 4 months after birth, during parental leave, with a severe disability (the Integrationsamt must approve first), and Betriebsrat members..

Many collective agreements rule out ordinary dismissal after long service and a certain age.

Dismissal protection starts only after more than 6 months in the job.

A dismissal is invalid if the company could employ you in another open position, even after reasonable retraining..

The company must hear the Betriebsrat before every single dismissal and give it one week to respond.

The elected employee body.

The company and the Betriebsrat negotiate whether, when and how the layoff happens.

The company and the Betriebsrat can agree on a list of the people to be dismissed.

In a layoff the company cannot pick freely.

A temporary employer set up in a Sozialplan.

You accept the new terms for now and sue within 3 weeks.

In the first labour court instance each side pays its own lawyer, even the winner.

The first, short hearing in front of one judge, usually a few weeks after filing.

If there is no settlement, the full chamber hears the case months later and decides.

The suit that asks the labour court to declare the dismissal invalid.

An office at the labour court where staff write down your suit for you.

Insurance that pays your lawyer and court costs.

The company dismisses you and offers the same job on worse terms.

You have a right to a written reference that covers performance and conduct.

You and the company end the contract by signing together.

The company ends the contract alone.

A dismissal is only valid on paper with an original signature from someone allowed to sign.

A severance is taxed in full, but with a softer method: the tax office works out the extra tax on one fifth of it and multiplies that by five.

The class your employer uses to withhold wage tax: I for singles, II for single parents, III and V for married couples with unequal pay, IV for equal earners.

Income is taxed in the year you receive it.

When the whole site closes, nobody is selected, so there is no Sozialauswahl.

Money the company owed you before proceedings opened.

If your employer goes insolvent and owes you wages, the Agentur für Arbeit pays your net pay for the last 3 months of the job.

The person a court puts in charge of an insolvent company.