Dismissed: what the first few days decide
A dismissal is largely settled in the days following the announcement, and almost always in favour of whoever knows the deadlines. Notice worked or severance paid, what the C4 says, your right to know the reason, outplacement: here is what gets decided, and when.
The day you are told
A dismissal with notice is served in writing, and the writing must state when the notice starts and how long it runs. The form is not a detail: the law requires registered post or service by a bailiff, and an irregular notification can leave the notice without effect.
Notice does not start on the day it is handed over: it runs from the following Monday. That simple rule shifts the whole calendar, and it fixes the real end date of the contract — the one that matters to your next employer and to the unemployment office alike.
Sign nothing that day. A termination by mutual agreement, a final settlement, a waiver: all of it can be put in front of you in the same meeting, and none of it should be signed in the heat of the moment. You are entitled to go home, read it, and have it read.
Write down, the same day, the exact date, the form of the notification and what was said. If a dispute arises later, what was written and dated will decide it, and your memory is not evidence.
Notice worked or severance paid
The employer has two options, and they do not produce the same effects for you:
That last point deserves attention: severance in lieu is paid in one go but corresponds to several months, sometimes several years of salary. It does not simply add to your income for the year, it falls under a separate tax regime. Ask for the calculation in writing before preferring severance to working the notice, where the choice is left to you.
While working out notice, two rights are often overlooked. Job-search leave lets you take time off to look for work while keeping your pay. And if you find a job before the end, counter-notice lets you leave earlier on a shortened notice: you are not held to the period the employer set.
How much notice
Since the single status of 2014, blue-collar and white-collar workers fall under the same rules. The length of notice is set by law, in weeks, and rises with seniority. It is not negotiated downwards, and a contract clause providing less than the legal minimum is without effect.
The trap lies elsewhere: if you were already employed before 1 January 2014, your notice is calculated in two parts. The first is frozen under the rules applicable at the time, the second follows the current scale from 2014 onwards. Two colleagues in the same job, with the same total seniority, can have very different notice periods depending on when they joined.
We do not publish the table of weeks: it is long, it carries special cases, and one wrong cell in a table like that is expensive for whoever relies on it. The federal employment service provides an official calculator, and that is the one to use — then have the result checked by your union or an employment lawyer if the stakes justify it.
Check the seniority used before anything else. It often includes periods people forget: a fixed-term contract that ran into the current one without a break, a period of agency work with the same employer, a transfer of undertaking. Understated seniority shortens the notice, and therefore the severance.
The C4 decides your benefits
The C4 is the document the employer hands over at the end of the contract. It is not a formality: it is the document the unemployment office relies on, and the reason for unemployment written on it determines whether you are paid straight away, later, or not at all.
Read it before leaving the company. A reason suggesting you caused the break — abandoning your post, misconduct, voluntary departure — can trigger a sanction, even though you were dismissed. If the reason does not match what happened, say so in writing, immediately, and keep a copy.
The other documents follow: the holiday certificate, the final statement, the C1 declaring your household situation and setting your category. Our page on unemployment benefits covers the registration deadlines — eight days in the general case, two months for a period covered by severance — and what missing them costs.
Your right to know why
An employer is not required to give reasons for a dismissal unprompted. But you have the right to ask for the concrete reasons, in writing and within a deadline, and the employer must then answer in detail.
Two sanctions exist. An employer who does not answer properly owes a fixed indemnity. And if the dismissal is found manifestly unreasonable — that is, based on reasons unconnected with your capability, your conduct or the needs of the business, and which a normal and reasonable employer would never have relied on — a further indemnity is due, its amount framed by the applicable collective agreement.
This remedy is little used, often because people do not know it exists and because the deadline for asking is short. It is the first reflex to have if the reason for your dismissal looks false or absent.
Serious cause, and its three days
Dismissal for serious cause ends the contract with no notice and no severance. It is the heaviest sanction, and that is precisely why the law confines it within two very short deadlines.
The employer has three working days from the moment they learn of the fact to terminate, then three further working days to notify the precise reasons in writing. One day late on either, and the serious cause collapses: the dismissal stands, but severance becomes due again.
It is also for the employer to prove the fact relied on, not for you to prove the opposite. A contested serious cause is fought on those two grounds — the deadline and the evidence — and it is always worth having it examined before accepting a departure without severance.
Outplacement
Outplacement is job-search support — assessment, advice, coaching — that the employer must fund in certain situations, notably where the notice or severance reaches a certain length, and under a special regime from a certain age.
Two practical points. It is not a gift: where it is due, refusing it without reason can affect your benefits. And where it is offered although not due, it is a service with a value — it is negotiated like the rest of an exit agreement.
What protects you
Some situations make a dismissal irregular, or markedly more expensive for the employer:
These protections do not make dismissal impossible. They shift the burden of proof and sharply increase the compensation due if the reason does not hold.
What we do not put a figure on
The table of notice periods in weeks, the amounts under the collective agreement on giving reasons, the thresholds and the value of outplacement: those figures are not worked through in our sources, so we do not publish them. On a subject where one wrong cell translates into weeks of lost salary, it is better to point to the official calculator and to advice than to approximate.
Everything concerning compensation after the dismissal, on the other hand — duration, tapering amounts, registration deadlines, documents — is sourced from the unemployment office and published: that is the subject of our page on unemployment benefits.
Finally, a dismissal is rarely handled alone. Your union, if you are a member, assists free of charge and knows the sector agreements, which can provide better than the law. An employment lawyer puts a figure on what is at stake before you sign anything. Both cost less than a miscalculated severance.
Sign no exit document on the day of the announcement. Ask for a copy of everything, note the dates, and have it read before you hand anything back signed. Almost everything can be put right; a signature cannot.