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What shoud I do if I got fired?

What should I do if I got fired?

Nowadays, unfortunately, losing your job is a common situation due to the economical crisis. Therefore, if you are working in Spain and are in this unpleasant situation, we give you some details in this article on what the Spanish Law says concerning getting fired and how you should use this information in order to face the situation in a much better way.

The compensation.

This is the amount which you will receive after you get fired. The exact amount depends on many different aspects, such as the kind of contract you have (temporary or permanent), how much time you have been working for the company and the reasons why you are dismissed (for instance, collective dismissal because of economical, technical, organizational or production reasons). These factors can influence on the compensation amount you will receive, however other elements could also play an important role.

Making a general analysis of all the factors is not the idea of this article, therefore we are going to take a more holistic approach, focusing only on the redundancy: objective dismissal because of economical, technical, organizational or production grounds.

If the employee termination letter is based on that cause and if you agree then its called a fair dismissal. When it is a fair dismissal the minimum compensation you will get is twenty days of salary per year of working with a maximum of twelve months, as provided in the article 52.c) of the Spanish Statue of Worker´s Rights.

Nevertheless, if you do not agree on the cause of the dismissal, the procedure or the calculation of your compensation, then you have the right to claim. As a consequence of this, you have a period of twenty days after you received the employee termination letter to present a written claim to the Arbitration and Mediation Service, hereinafter SAMA (this name can be different in other the Autonomous Regions in Spain).

In that case, if your dismissal is declared unfair, the calculation of your compensation will be higher.

It is necessary to take into account when your employment contract has started. For instance, if you started to work after the 12^th of February of 2012 and you are fired, then you will get a compensation of thirty three days of salary per year of working with a maximum of twenty four months, in accordance with the article 56 of the Spanish Statue of Worker´s Rights.

Nevertheless to get that quantity, you will need to reach an agreement countersigned by the SAMA. This way, this agreement shall be enforceable without need of ratification before the judge or the court.

Fuente: www.fundacionsama.com

The exemption

It is important to know that certain limits of your compensation received for dismissal are exempt in your tax declaration. The amount involved is stipulated in the article 7.e) of the Spanish Personal Income Taxes Law.

It is obviously that every situation is different and you have to look holistic on each case, however, we hope that the information on this article will help you.

Laura Zamora Lozano.