Saw this image on Instagram and it set off my BS detectors. Some googling indicated this is probably just an example of one particular employment contract and not a government policy, but I couldn’t get a rock solid answer. Wanted to see what some Germans could say on the matter. Danke!
by GamingSeerReddit
10 comments
There are no legally guaranteed severance packages. The rest of the post is more or less correct, but this part isn’t.
You’re not legally entitled to any severance. If you’re being fired for a legal reason and it’s not a negotiation for you to leave, you get your normal notice period, which may or may not be 3 months depending on your contract and/or how long you’ve been working there. Unemployment is an insurance you pay into. You also don’t get to take whatever classes you want for free. They’re not going to pay for you to learn Japanese for the hell of it. But they will pay for education which can help you become more employable.
The paid leave and compensation (severance) depends on the size of the company and the duration of employment. For example, during a “restructuring” such a deal may well be possible. If one gets fired for stealing spoons from the tea kitchen, there is zero severance.
The second part is correct. Health insurance is not coupled to the job and is covered as part of the unemployment insurance. Depending on the skillset, additional (re)training may be offered to people who are unemployed.
That’s mostly incorrect.
You don’t get “paid leave”. There’s a notice period. While some companies will tell you not to come in to work any more, others will make you work the entirety of the time. They may also make you take however many days of paid leave you have left – unless your contract says something different, you only have a right to have it paid out if you cannot take it during the notice period.
There’s no “large cash compensation” when you’re fired. They may offer you one to get rid of you if they cannot legally fire you.
You don’t really get “any type of training”. The unemployment agency decides what makes sense – or they make you do things that do not make much sense in your point of view.
Not losing health coverage is normal, and not something anyone here thinks about, yes.
Also you don’t get any training you want, you will need to explain to the clerk how it will help you find a job.
And the training is not top quality, just some company which specializes in getting that money from the state.
Someone most likely working in tech got a good severance package and is extrapolating their experience to a whole country.
Probably, 3 months here is a notice period… Of cource, one can negoatiate it to get more money if the one who is fired, try to strike back…
In German we said that “Es kommt darauf…”
and yes, when a person worked and paid contribution enough, one can get unemployment salary and make a language courses or other trainings so on from Arbeitsagentur. That is why the taxes are high…
if there are legal reason to let someone go, these people usually don’t get offered any severance. They also don’t get any “garden leave” because their contracts can be terminated immediately. Gross negligence, endangerment, refusal to work could be such reasons (amongst others of similar severity). Or if someone repeatedly shits on their bosses desk.
Severance is offered if there are no legal reasons to terminate a contract. In that case, companies often offer several months of garden leave and severance packages to persuade employees to willingly agree to a termination. There aren’t any legal rules and it’s highly dependent on the area of business, but 1 months’ salary per year working at the company is a good rule of thumb.
The funny thing is that we have social insurances and workers rights to not radicalise the people. If the people are cared for they are less likely to start a communist revolution.
You would only find this in large old companies.