Germany: Redundancy/Layoff

The termination letter must be signed in wet ink, otherwise it is invalid.

Labour and Employment Comparative Guide for the jurisdiction of Germany, check out our comparative guides section to compare across multiple countries

The digitalisation of work is having a profound impact on the skills that employers need from their workforce, resulting in the competing challenges of skilled worker shortages and widespread redundancies.

In Germany, an employee (Arbeitnehmer) enjoys a special status that is described as the personal obligation to perform work upon the employer's instructions, without entrepreneurial risks ...

In its judgment of 20 September 2012 (ref. no. 6 AZR 155/11), the Federal Labor Court considered that a possible contravention of the formal requirement that the employer must provide information to the works council in the event of mass redundancies (Section 17 (2) KSchG [German act on protection against unlawful dismissal]) may be remedied by a final statement made by the works council if the employer has provided it with the information required by the act in an unsigned text.

The German Federal Labour Court recently addressed the issue whether stalking colleagues can justify a dismissal without notice.