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Termination of employment

Claeys & Engels has updated the calculation modules on www.formuleclaeys.be.

Higher level white-collar employees who enter into service after 1 January 2012 will, in the event they are dismissed, be entitled to a notice period, calculated on the basis of the IPA Act. The new notice period amounts to 30 days per started year in service, with a minimum of 91 days.

The Claeys Formula will, however, remain a valuable guideline with respect to the dismissal compensation for employees who entered into service before 1 January 2012, even if their dismissal takes place after that date.

As from now on, you can calculate dismissal periods using both formulae (Claeys and IPA) with our calculators on www.formuleclaeys.be.

In recent press reports, based on theoretical models, you may have read that the notice periods for white-collar workers will become longer (and thus more expensive) because of the IPA Act. However, an analysis of 643 judicial decisions, all handed down in 2010, shows that, in practice, the notice periods for almost all higher level white-collar employees will effectively be shorter because of the new IPA Act.

The notice periods for white-collar employees remain, however, long and are much longer than the notice periods for blue-collar workers. A thorough review is indeed necessary. The Constitutional Court has decided that the harmonisation between blue-collar and white-collar workers needs to be accomplished by 8 July 2013. This autumn, Claeys & Engels made a contribution to the debate about harmonisation with a proposal for a new dismissal law.