Information & advice

A German court has referred a case to the European Court of Justice‚ asking whether a German law giving younger workers shorter minimum notice periods contravenes the EU Equal Treatment Directive.

Under German law‚ the minimum notice an employer must give an employee increases with length of service‚ but any service before age 25 is not taken into account.  This means younger employees are entitled to less notice of termination of their employment.

In the case of Kücükdeveci v Swedex Gmbh & Co‚ the ECJ has been asked to rule on whether this law can be justified on the grounds that employers have ‘a commercial interest in flexibility regarding staffing’ and that younger people are recognised to have less protection in terms of notice periods than older people because due to ‘their age and/or their lesser social‚ family and private obligations’ they are assumed to be more flexible and mobile than older workers. 

This case therefore addresses whether stereotypical assumptions about a particular age group can be used to justify discrimination; the assumption here being that younger people have fewer personal responsibilities‚ and it can therefore be justified to offer them less employment protection.