Notice of termination and short-time working

An employment contract can be terminated in writing or verbally at any time by either party and without valid reason. Under Swiss law, the employee representative committee does not have a say in this type of termination.

Only in the case of mass redundancies does the employee representative committee have the right to be consulted. However, the recipient of the notice of termination has the right to demand that the reason for termination be stated in writing. There is no investigation of whether or not the termination is socially unjustified, i.e. whether the reasons are related to the performance or other characteristics of the employee or whether difficult business considerations made the redundancy necessary. An employment contract can be ended through:

• termination
• termination due to change of contract (new or changed contract is not accepted by employee)
• agreement to terminate employment (mutual cancellation of employment contract)
• termination on a specific date (for fixed-term contracts)
• retirement
• death of the employee