Redundancies Under Maltese Law

When terminating on grounds of redundancy, an employer must always follow the last in, first out rule. Thus, the last person engaged within a class of employees affected by the redundancy should be the first to be made redundant.

A class of employees is defined by law as the work performed or expected to be performed independently of the title or name given to the post in situations where there is no collective agreement in place. This means that an employer must differentiate between the staff based on the tasks they perform in practice in order to categorise the employees into classes.

If in a few months, the situation improves to the extent that there are job openings within a company, an employee who has been terminated on grounds of redundancy is entitled to re-employment should the same post become available again within one year. When re-employed, employment conditions must be as favourable as they were prior to redundancy and the employee shall be deemed by