Italy’s unemployment rate is currently 11.1%, but at least those losing their jobs in the financial sector can fall back on some solid job loss rights. Four weeks’ pay is the minimum and this kicks in after just a year in the job, unlike in the UK where two years’ service is required before redundancy payments are mandatory.īizarrely, nine years in the same company seems like the ideal time to lose your job in Australia – you could receive up to 16 weeks’ severance pay after this period, but this shrinks to 12 weeks once you’ve worked at the same firm for 10 years, according to Stephen Trew, partner at local law firm Holding Redlich. In Australia, it’s not necessary for employers to justify layoffs, but statutory payments are quite substantial. And, instead of severance pay, the ‘end of service gratuity’ is a relatively generous 21 days’ basic salary for the first five years of employment, according to Sara Khoja, partner, Employment and Incentives Group, Clyde & Co, Dubai. In the Dubai International Financial Centre, for instance, there’s a provision saying that any employer cutting jobs must give employees a reasonable time to find another job before throwing them out on to the street. However, in practice it’s a softer approach. For any expats losing their job, they also forfeit employer sponsorship and so the prospect of being evicted from the country beckons. ‘Redundancy’ is not recognised as a concept in either the UAE or Saudi Arabia and therefore there are no legally binding severance payments. Middle East financial centres also appear to be scrooges when it comes to job cuts. However, it’s relatively generous with severance pay – two-thirds of a month’s wages per year of service – and can implement hefty fines (HK$350k) and imprisonment for employers who wilfully withhold severance pay, according to Jennifer Van Dale and Sonia Wong from Baker & Mackenzie. Hong Kong also appears miserly around redundancy – the statutory notice period is just seven days and an employer doesn’t have to legally justify job cuts. Borrelli, an employment lawyer at Borrelli & Associates in New York. However, any contract disputes usually favour the company, according to Michael J. And, in the case of mass layoffs (500 or more employees) the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), requires employers to give 60 days’ notice. Those in Switzerland can take solace from the 3.1% unemployment rate in the country.Įmployees in the US can at a least console themselves with the fact that notice periods and severance pay is usually determined by employment contracts, rather than the letter of the law. Lerch says that banks are not usually any more generous than other industries when it comes to notice periods (one month) and severance pay. So spare a thought for employees of UBS and Credit Suisse losing their jobs in the banks’ headquarters. “Such severance pay, however, is not very common in Switzerland, because the employer can deduct the contributions made to the mandatory pension plan,” says André Lerch, an employment lawyer in Zurich, so the effect of a severance payment is to cut pension benefits later on. In Switzerland, meanwhile, there’s no statutory redundancy payment (even if a parachute payment is usually negotiated with a trade union or employee group) and only workers over 50, who have served with the same company for 20 years or more, are entitled to severance pay of between two and eight months’ salary. In every state in the US (bar Montana) employment is considered “at will,” meaning that an employer can dismiss workers at any time, for any reason – as long as it’s not discriminatory – and are not legally required to shell out any compensatory pay. The axe is being sharpened, or liberally swung, in financial centres across the globe, but if it’s hanging over your head, you might ask yourself where in the world is the worst place to lose your job? The answer, according to our research, is the US, swiftly followed by Switzerland.īoth countries have redundancy, or layoff, laws in place that favour the employer and make it easy for them to cut staff without the need for generous (or any) severance payments.
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