What are employees in Switzerland entitled to when leaving a job?

Terminating a work contract in Switzerland does not release your employer from certain legally-binding obligations.

These rules apply no matter how your employment ended – whether you quit or were fired.

In either case, the company you worked for has to comply with statuary provisions that lay out what an employee is entitled to when leaving their job:

Reference letter

Swiss law mandates that the company you work for must give you a reference letter when you leave your job.

The content of an employment reference letter must also adhere to certain rules.

The first and foremost is that this document should not contain any subjective perceptions of you as a person or an employee.

Instead, it should be a truthful and non-acrimonious assessment of your performance. And it should be as “sympathetic” as factually possible.

A standard reference letter must include the following information:

• Personal details of the employee (name, date of birth, place of origin)
• Name of the employer
• Start and end employment dates
• Detailed list of duties and responsibilities
• Description of the employee’s position
• Objective assessment of performance and conduct
• Reason for the employee’s departure

Another rule is that the letter should not contain any coded language.

Examples include describing your performance as merely ‘satisfactory’ — which your prospective employer will read as ‘so-so’— rather than ‘very satisfactory’.

READ MORE: Must my Swiss employer give me a reference letter? 

Money owed

Unless you leave your job with a clean slate – that is, your employer doesn’t owe you anything before you part ways – you can expect to receive outstanding payments.

For instance, the company must compensate you for unused vacation days, if you have any left.

You are also entitled to get all your outstanding wages, a pro-rata 13th-month salary, and other unused benefits paid out.

What about the severance pay?

Unlike many other European countries, Switzerland does not require employers to provide severance compensation to all their workers.

This benefit is compulsory only in cases of employees aged 50 or over, who had worked at least 20 years for a given company in one or several locations.

The amount of this pay-out is set in the individual employment contract or in the collective labour agreement, if the company has one.

READ MORE: What you should know if you want to quit your job in Switzerland