On 8 May, Law no. 27/2014 was published, undertaking a new amendment to the Portuguese Labor Code by setting new rules for job elimination redundancies.
Pursuant to this new Law, when there are a number of positions with identical functional contents, the employer must follow a particular hierarchy of criteria, defined by the Law as relevant and non-discriminatory, to decide which employee to be made redundant:
1. The performance review according to parameters of which the employee has been previously informed;
2. The academic and professional qualifications;
3. The cost to the company of the maintenance of the work relationship;
4. The professional experience; and
5. The seniority in the company.
Hence, the criteria of seniority in the position, in the professional category or in the company as a prevailing rule have been dropped and pushed to a last level.
The requirement of “practical impossibility for the maintenance of the work relationship”, as a prerequisite for job elimination redundancies, consisting on the inexistence of another job available and compatible with the professional category of the respective employee has been resumed.
This requirement has also been reinstated with regard to the termination for inadaptation.
The new regime will come into effect on 1 June, 2014.