The new Employment Protection Act, LAS, will be applied for the first time on October 1, 2022, and is proposed to apply from June 30, 2022.

The law is supplemented by collective agreements where there may be deviations from LAS, which is why it is important that you are aware of your collective agreement.

LAS regulates the employment relationship between employees and employers and contains rules on what applies to: Employment – Termination – Dismissal.

What Does the New LAS Mean?

Broadly speaking, the new LAS means that the main rule is now full-time employment – unless otherwise agreed. Some important changes:

• Unlike before (24 months), it is now sufficient to have worked 12 months during a five-year period for the employment to become permanent.
• At the same time, anyone who has worked at least 9 months during a 3-year period now has priority for a fixed-term employment.
• An employee who during the same month has had at least 3 special fixed-term employments (previously: general fixed-term) may count the time between each employment as employment time (concerns hourly employments).
• Regarding hired personnel via staffing companies, if they have been hired by one and the same company for a total of 24 months during a 3-year period, either a permanent position or compensation corresponding to 2 months’ salary must be offered. If the offer is not accepted, the hiring can continue.

The road to permanent employment is thus faster with the new LAS.

Other Important Changes that Have been Added Include:

• Order of priority rules in the event of staff reductions: previously, employees with a maximum of 10 employees could, under special circumstances, exempt 2 employees from this rule. Now, 3 employees can be exempted from this rule – however, with a three-month lock-in period.
• “Objective grounds” is changed to “Objective reasons” when dismissing employees. Greater consideration is given to the breach of contract and less consideration to the employee’s personal interests.