Termination of employment

What it means

The Labour Code lists a closed set of ways employment can end: by agreement, by notice, by immediate termination and by termination during probation. A fixed-term relationship also ends when the agreed period runs out.

It is not one act but a date from which a whole chain of duties runs. Termination during the probation period has its own rules, with no reason to be given, and work agreements outside an employment relationship have rules of their own.

Termination should be told apart from the lapse of employment that happens without any act by the parties: on the employee’s death, or for a foreign national when the period of permitted residence runs out. Payroll duties are handled much the same way, but under the Labour Code the deceased employee’s money claims pass first to the spouse, children or parents and only then into the estate.

How it works in practice

Pay, compensation for untaken leave and any severance go out on the normal pay day for the final month. The employee receives an employment confirmation and, on request, a work reference and a certificate of taxable income.

The employer deregisters the employee from the Sociálna poisťovňa with a registration form within eight days of the insurance ending and notifies the health insurer of the change of payer within a similar period. Where wages were subject to enforcement deductions, the bailiff is told as well.

On termination claims against the employee are often settled too: an unreturned travel advance, a shortage or private phone calls. They can be deducted from the final pay only under a written deduction agreement or where the law allows it, so we prepare that agreement with the client before the last pay day.

What to watch out for

Notice served during a protected period, typically while the employee is on sick leave, is invalid. If the employee states that they insist on continued employment and the court agrees, the employer pays wage compensation for the entire length of the dispute, which runs for years; the court may cut it back for the time beyond the statutory limit only on the employer’s application, and it need not do so.

A non-compete clause is easy to forget on departure. The employer can withdraw from it only while the employment still lasts; miss that, and it pays the former employee monthly compensation for the whole agreed period, even if it no longer cares whether they work for a competitor.