European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
Eurofound's ERM database on restructuring-related legal regulations provides information on regulations in the Member States of the European Union and Norway which are explicitly or implicitly linked to anticipating and managing change.
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A collective dismissal is defined as a redundancy related to economic or technical reasons or reasons linked to production. This means that the responsibility of dismissals is non-inherent to workers. The definition is partly based on the collective agreement no. 24 (1975).
An employer needs to plan to dismiss, or make redundant, a minimum of 10 employees within the following 60 days in order to fall within the scope of national legislation.
Moreover, different thresholds define the collective dismissal, the legislation is applicable to:
Merchant navy personnel and civil servants are excluded from the legislation.
The national legislation requires the employers to justify planned redundancies by reporting directly to workers or to the workers’ representatives.
Sectorial collective agreements might set lower thresholds than specified here.
Eurofound (2015), Belgium: Definition of collective dismissal, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/definition-of-collective-dismissal/belgium
This Eurofound research paper explores key trends in restructuring in recent years, highlighting the companies that announced the largest job losses and job gains in the EU. It builds on an analysis of company announcements recorded in Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor (ERM), alongside a new classification of restructuring events involving changes in company location.
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Employers increasingly use tools such as email, SMS and messaging apps like WhatsApp or Signal to communicate with employees. While these technologies offer both efficiency and convenience, their use in communicating sensitive information, particularly for notifying employees of dismissal, raises legal concerns. This article explores the legal framework on dismissals across the EU, with a special focus on the use of digital means for communicating employment dismissals. Drawing on examples from various Member States, it examines the legal validity of digital dismissals.
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In 2023, thousands of workers in big tech lost their jobs. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Salesforce had been considered to offer good and secure jobs up to this point. Giants of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, these companies are among the highest paying, with Eurostat data from 2022 indicating that workers in ICT had the second-highest median gross hourly earnings (surpassed only by earnings in the financial sector).[1] These layoffs were a shock, especially as the biggest companies had hired extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic. What happened in the two years after this redundancy wave – was that the end of the cuts or did the companies start expanding again?
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In 2024, the automotive sector in the EU came to the fore in public and policy discussions. The focus was on the slowdown in electric vehicle (EV) sales, rising global competition, belated investments in new technologies, and the potential closure of production lines in Europe. A number of European car manufacturers and suppliers announced their intention to make large-scale redundancies and change long-standing collective agreements on job security and wages, while workers raised concerns amid demonstrations and industrial action.
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