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.
Art. 53.1 modified by Art. 2.4 of Royal Decree law 10/2010
Employers are required to notify their workforce of planned redundancies 15 days in advance of initiating the process, in case of dismissals on objective grounds. This applies for collective and individual redundancies. This notice period applies to all the employees irrespective of their tenure. The employee is entitled to paid leave of six hours per week during the notice period to look for alternative employment when there is an objective (justified by external circumstances) dismissal. If the employer fails to comply with the notice period requirement, they will be obliged to pay the employee an amount corresponding to the period of notice that was not given.
Dismissal must be communicated in written to both, workers affected and employees' representative bodies existing in the company.
In 2010, the notice period was reduced from 1 month to two weeks. The Spanish economy appears now to be more flexible than the average of the OECD countries in this area. Average notice periods in OECD countries are 3.5 weeks for workers with 9 months tenure at the time of dismissal, 1.3 months for workers with 4 years tenure and 2.7 months for workers with 20 years of tenure at the time of dismissal.
Eurofound (2015), Spain: Notice period to employees, Restructuring legislation database, Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/legislationdb/notice-period-to-employees/spain
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