In 2020, nearly 30,000 people lost their jobs as part of group layoffs.

After a difficult period, a recovery typically follows, which in practice will involve recruiting and hiring new employees. The provisions of the Act on the Special Principles for Terminating Employment Contracts for Reasons Not Related to the Employee of 13 March 2003 (consolidated text, Journal of Laws of 2018, item 1969: hereinafter „U.S.Z.R.”) impose obligations and even restrictions on employers re-hiring former employees.

According to Article 9 of the U.S.Z.R., when re-hiring employees in the same occupational group, the employer must hire the employee with whom they terminated the employment relationship as part of the group layoffs, if the laid-off employee expresses a desire to return to work with the employer within one year from the date of termination. The re-hiring should occur within 15 months from the date of the termination of the employment relationship as part of the group layoffs. This applies to group layoffs and does not apply when the employer has fewer than 20 employees. In the case of individual layoffs, the employee’s declaration of the intent to rejoin is not binding.

Conducting group layoffs due to the bankruptcy or liquidation of the employer does not exclude the above possibility.

The obligation to rehire a former employee arises when they submit a declaration of intent to return to work with the employer (in any form) and when re-hiring employees in the same occupational group as the one laid off. The concept of the same occupational group is not defined and should be referred to in case law and the specific circumstances of the case. If both conditions are met, the employee has priority in obtaining re-employment. The employer meets this obligation by offering the employee a job within 15 months of the termination. However, the employee is not required to accept this offer.

The employer is not obliged to offer the dismissed employee the same working conditions that applied to them previously, but they must be similar to those offered to similar candidates.

Any claims the employee might have against the employer will be based on Article 471 of the Civil Code. An employee not re-hired can request the reimbursement for costs incurred in connection with the intention to enter into an employment contract, and there may also be liability on the part of the employer in terms of negative contractual interest arising from a dispute over entering into a contract.