Can employees be dismissed during the epidemic?

Employees must not be dismissed during the epidemic; However, if you have to lay off a large number of employees during the epidemic because of poor management of your company, you can terminate the contract according to law, provided that you can notify the workers 30 days in advance through consultation.

First, can employees be dismissed during the epidemic?

During the epidemic period, the employer cannot dismiss employees at will, otherwise it will violate the relevant laws and regulations of the Labor Contract Law and bear corresponding responsibilities.

Under the current situation, even if the employer has serious difficulties in production and operation due to the epidemic and needs to lay off employees, it is still not recommended for the employer to lay off employees economically.

Second, laws and regulations:

According to Article 2 of the Notice on Properly Handling the Labor Relations during the Prevention and Control of Pneumonia Infection in novel coronavirus, if an enterprise has difficulties in production and operation due to the epidemic, it can stabilize its post by adjusting wages, taking breaks in rotation and shortening working hours. Through consultation with employees, and try not to lay off employees or minimize them. Eligible enterprises can enjoy stable job subsidies according to regulations.

Article 41 of the Labor Contract Law is under any of the following circumstances. If it is necessary to reduce more than 20 employees or less than 20 employees, but accounting for more than 10% of the total number of employees in the enterprise, the employer may explain the situation to the trade union or all employees 30 days in advance, and after listening to the opinions of the trade union or employees and reporting to the labor administrative department, it may reduce employees:

(1) Conforming to the provisions of the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law;

(two) serious difficulties in production and operation;

(three) the enterprise has changed production, major technological innovation or adjustment of business mode, and it still needs to reduce staff after changing the labor contract;

(4) Other major changes have taken place in the objective economic situation on which the labor contract was concluded, which makes it impossible to perform the labor contract.

When reducing personnel, priority should be given to retaining the following personnel:

(1) Concluding a long-term fixed-term labor contract with the unit;

(2) Concluding an open-ended labor contract with the unit;

(3) there are no other employees in the family, and there are elderly people or minors who need to support them. If the employing unit reduces its staff in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph of this article and recruits staff again within six months, it shall notify the retrenched staff and give priority to the retrenched staff under the same conditions.

To sum up, whether employees can be dismissed during the epidemic period is stipulated by law, and such behavior must be justified. Dismissal of employees without reason will bear all the economic losses of workers. Therefore, it should be handled in accordance with the provisions of the labor law to avoid labor disputes between the two sides.