To obtain our permission to end a contract for business reasons, send us a redundancy request. If your company has a redundancy committee through its collective agreement (‘CAO’), submit your redundancy request to this committee instead of to us. Make sure you meet all of the required criteria before submitting your request.

What are the criteria?

  • You must prove you have genuine business reasons for ending the contract.
  • You must prove you used the anti-age discrimination redundancy method (‘afspiegelingsbeginsel’) when selecting employees for redundancy. This means the selection process was fair and the age distribution in your workforce remained the same before and after the redundancies.
  • You must prove you did your very best to find a suitable alternative role (‘herplaatsing’) for your employee. This means spending the required amount of time (equivalent to the notice period in the contract) looking into options for your employee and providing any necessary training.

What are genuine business reasons for redundancies?

  • Your business is struggling financially. 
  • You do not have enough work for your employee. 
  • You have restructured your business or introduced new technologies or systems that have made your employee’s role unnecessary. 
  • You are closing your business or a part of it. 
  • Your business is relocating. 
  • You have stopped receiving financial support (‘loonkostensubsidie’) for an employee.

Collective redundancy

You might be in a position where you have to let a large group of employees go for business reasons. If this involves 20 or more employees within a short period of time, this could be classed as a collective redundancy. If you are planning on initiating a collective redundancy process, you will be required to officially inform us of this.

Keep in mind that starting a collective redundancy process involves significant preparation and paperwork. We therefore recommend contacting our Employment law department (‘Arbeidsjuridische Dienstverlening’) for guidance before beginning this process.

Rehiring obligation

If you recently made an employee redundant for business reasons and a job with similar duties becomes available within 26 weeks, you must first offer this job to your former employee. This requirement is referred to as the rehiring obligation (‘wederindiensttredingsvoorwaarde’).

Your employee is protected by a dismissal ban (‘opzegverbod’) for the first 2 years that they are unable to work because of a long-term illness or occupational disability. This means they cannot be dismissed during this period. The dismissal ban is usually lifted after these 2 years have passed, allowing you to end the contract. If your employee does not agree to this, you will have to submit a dismissal request to obtain our permission to end the contract. Make sure you meet all of the required criteria before submitting your request.

What are the criteria?

You will only receive our permission to dismiss your employee if you are able to prove all of the following:

  • Your employee is unable to work because of a long-term illness or occupational disability.
  • Your employee is not expected to recover enough within the next 26 weeks to be able to return to work.
  • Your employee is not expected to be able to return to work on modified duties (‘werk in aangepaste vorm’) within the next 26 weeks.
  • Your employee will not be able to take on a suitable alternative role in your organisation, even if they are given training. 
  • You are no longer under any obligation to continue paying your employee’s salary as the dismissal ban has been lifted.

Keep in mind you will be expected to do everything you can to support your employee’s return to work during their first 2 years of illness. If we conclude you have not done enough in this regard, you will be penalised with a sick pay sanction (‘loonsanctie’). This means you will have to continue paying your employee’s wages for up to 1 year as the dismissal ban will remain in force.

If you obtain our permission to end a contract, inform your employee of their dismissal or redundancy within 4 weeks of us making this decision. Make sure you do this in writing, as this will mark the formal ending of the contract. The notice period will begin as soon as you have done this.

If you do not submit a dismissal or redundancy request when legally required to do so, your employee will be able to challenge the termination of their contract. This means they can ask a district judge to overturn the dismissal or redundancy in court. If the judge rules in your employee’s favour, the employment contract will continue to be legally binding and you will have to keep paying your employee’s wages.

You may need to end an employee’s contract for reasons that are not business-related or due to occupational disability. If this is the case and your employee does not agree to their dismissal, you will have to submit a request to the district judge asking for the contract to be terminated (in Dutch). The following situations are valid reasons for seeking the judge’s permission to end a contract:

  • dismissal due to excessive absenteeism (‘frequent ziekteverzuim’)
  • dismissal due to poor performance (‘disfunctioneren’)
  • dismissal due to misconduct (‘verwijtbaar handelen of nalatigheid’)
  • dismissal due to a breakdown in trust and confidence (‘verstoorde arbeidsrelatie’)
  • dismissal due to a conscientious objection (‘ernstig gewetensbezwaar’)
  • dismissal due to some other ‘substantial reason’ (for example, if your employee is sent to prison)

Keep in mind you will need to provide solid evidence that the reason for dismissal was genuine. There may be instances where you have several reasons for wanting to dismiss your employee. If no single reason is strong enough on its own, you may be able to dismiss your employee based on a combination of these reasons (‘cumulatiegrond’). However, this will only be permitted if it is clear that you cannot reasonably be expected to continue employing your employee.

Please note: You cannot include ‘conscientious objection’ as 1 of the reasons for dismissal when submitting a request based on a combination of reasons.

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