Last week, the Third Progress Report WWZ from Minister Asscher (SZW) to the House of Representatives on the progress of the Work and Security Act (Wwz) was published. It appears that the costs of dismissal for employers have decreased: the compensation to be paid to an employee is on average 43% lower than before the introduction of the WWZ.
Furthermore, the cabinet intends to implement two changes in the field of dismissal law. First, employees who are long-term ill will retain their right to a transition compensation, but employers will be compensated for the costs of dismissal from the General Unemployment Fund (Awf). This will be offset by an increase in the uniform premium. Second, collective labor agreement parties will have more room to deviate from the transition compensation owed in the case of dismissal for economic reasons. The requirement that the relevant collective labor agreement provision must be at least ‘equivalent’ to the transition compensation the employee would have been entitled to is eliminated. However, there must be reasonable financial compensation or a provision aimed at limiting unemployment, or a combination of both. The expected effective date of the first change has now been postponed to January 1, 2019, but will be retroactive.
