What To Do If You Get Fired?

Today we talk about whether it is illegal to fire someone, what to be careful of when you get fired, and how much compensation you are entitled to.

To be honest, firing someone legally is something that is very hard to do in China. A valid reason to fire somebody would be when that employee conducts something very serious, like being absent for a few days on a row, stealing company money, and being convicted for committing a crime. Basically speaking, most terminations would be illegal, and you would be entitled to a good amount of severance pay and additional compensation.

The most common trap employers use when they fire you is to pull you into their office, and gravely tell you that they will either fire you or you can resign. This sounds like giving you a choice, but actually they are trying to avoid paying you out to make you disappear. If you do what they say and hand in a resignation letter, you do not get any severance pay. Therefore the correct way to deal with a scenario like this is to ask your employer to give you a written notice of termination, preferably stamped with the company seal. The golden rule of thumb is to never, ever sign any paper that your employer hands to you without checking with a lawyer.

If your employer only verbally tells you that you do not need to come to work tomorrow and that you are fired, it is another trap. Once you do not appear at work, you will be regarded as absent, and that will be a valid reason to fire you without paying you anything. Anything that is said verbally cannot be proven in court, so your employer will refuse to admit to the meeting about firing you even happening, but they will be able to pull out cold hard evidence of you disappearing without reason. The correct way to deal with this kind of termination is to immediately send an email or wechat message summarizing the content of the meeting, and ask for confirmation that you are fired. If you do not get any confirmation, go to work the next day as if nothing has happened.

Another common way of firing employees is to present you with a warning letter filled with all sorts of reasons about how bad your attitude is at work, and how impolite you are to your superiors. They will ask you to sign on it to acknowledge receipt, and threaten to deduct your full salary for a month or something worse. This is of course, another trap. By signing your name on it, you accept the warning letter, and your made up wrongdoings, which gives the employer a valid excuse now to fire you. In this case, you have to refuse to sign on the warning letter, and if it is served to you by wechat or email, you should reply that you disagree with the contents.

So if you have been fired illegally, you are entitled to severance pay and a penalty. Severance pay is 1 month of your salary per year of working at the company. The penalty is another compensation given to you for illegal termination, and it is also 1 month of your salary per year of work. For example, if you have worked for 3 years, then your severance pay would be 3 months, and the penalty would be another 3 months, with a grand total of 6 months. This is definitely not a small amount, therefore the many traps mentioned above to try and not pay you this.

To sum up, remember 2 rules and you will avoid most trouble. The first rule is to never sign or accept anything. The second rule is to always ask a lawyer for professional advice before taking your next step.