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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Collective dismissal occurs as a result of termination of the employment contract by the employer operated simultaneously or successively within a three-month period of either:
The grounds for collective dismissal which must be demonstrated by the employer are the following:
The national law does not specify whether the worker's refusal to the terms of a collective agreement which includes internal mobility falls under the scope of a collective redundancy. The CJEU (Case C-249/24, Ineo Infracom, 11 July 2024), provides guidance on this issue. Any termination of the employment relationship that is not initiated by the worker, including cases where the worker refuses a unilateral and substantial modification of an essential element of the employment contract (such as a change of workplace), must be treated as a “redundancy” or as a termination to be included in the calculation of collective redundancies.
Eurofound (2015), Portugal: Definition of collective dismissal, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/definition-of-collective-dismissal/portugal
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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