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.
20 (AngG); 1159, 1159a, 1159b, 1159 3b (ABGB); 77 (GewO); 45a (AMFG); §18, 18c (AVRAG); §107 3a (LAG)
An employer who wants to terminate an employment contract has to inform the affected worker accordingly. There are no legal regulations regarding the form or content, and the employer also does not have to provide a justification for the dismissal. An agreement of the employee is not required for the effectiveness of the termination.
The provisions of Section 1159 of the Austrian Civil Code (ABGB) in the new version apply to all terminations of employment after September 30, 2021. No distinction is made here between new and existing employees.
Accordingly, an employer's notice period of 6 weeks now also applies to workers in the 1st and 2nd year of employment, 2 months from the 3rd year of employment, 3 months from the 6th year of employment, 4 months from the 16th year of employment and 5 months from the 26th year of employment.
Not only have the notice periods been adjusted; new termination dates must now also be respected by the employer. According to the statutory provision, notices of termination can only take effect at the end of a quarter. As is the case for salaried employees, however, the 15th and the last day of a calendar month can also be agreed as termination dates. If the applicable collective agreement already contains such a provision, there is no need for action here. Accordingly, numerous collective agreements already contain provisions tailored to the new legal situation, which must be taken into account. However, if this is not the case, a corresponding contractual agreement is urgently recommended for both new and existing employees.
In the future, a one-month notice period to the end of the month will apply to terminations by employees. However, a longer notice period of up to six months may be agreed (as for salaried employees). It is important to note that the notice period to be observed by the employer may not be shorter than the notice period agreed with the employee.
As of October 1, 2021, the notice periods for blue-collar workers were aligned with those for white-collar workers.
Collective agreements and work agreements can provide more favourable provisions (from the perspective of the employee) than the statutory ones. However, unlike white collar workers, regulations in collective agreements, work agreements and individual contracts of blue collar workers can also be to the disadvantage of the employee.
It was stipulated that different regulations from the law could be regulated by collective agreement in seasonal sectors. In practice, there were frequent problems of interpretation regarding which sectors would fall under this exception. Via a government bill (amendments to three laws, AVRAG, ABGB, LAG), legal certainty for sectors where seasonal businesses predominate, has been ensured. Only sectors for which corresponding collective agreements were concluded between 1 January 2018 and 30 June 2025, are exempt from the general notice periods stipulated in the Austrian Civil Code ABGB. This applies to 29 collective agreements, including for example, the construction industry, roofers, plumbers, painters, security personnel in the security sector or employees in private bus companies and the small transport sector. Older such regulations in collective agreements have automatically become invalid. At the same time, the requirement that the sector has to be a seasonal sector, has been removed.
Eurofound (2015), Austria: Notice period to employees, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/notice-period-to-employees/austria
While large-scale redundancies at major manufacturers dominate the headlines, the true impact of this restructuring is being felt most acutely within the wider supply chain. This article examines the uneven distribution of job losses, the growing geographical shifts in production, ...
Eurofound’s ERM restructuring legislation database offers an overview of key restructuring-related regulations in the EU Member States and Norway. Its content is continuously updated to reflect any changes made by national legislators in response to, for instance, policy shifts, legal ...
Can Europe still achieve its ambitions for battery manufacturing? To answer this, the article looks at data from Eurofound’s European Restructuring Monitor and explores what recent large-scale restructuring events reveal about the state of play in the EU battery sector.
This working paper offers a comprehensive methodological overview of the European Restructuring Monitor (ERM) databases. Even though the methodology has not changed over time, new categories have been added, and the way it has been used by researchers and policymakers ...
