It is lawful to dismiss an employee for profit reasons, even if there is no [financial] crisis situation

The Court of Cassation, with judgement No. 19655 dated 10 August 2017, has confirmed the choice of an employer to dismiss one of its employees in order to increase management efficiency and business profit, even if lacking a [financial] crisis situation. In the case in hand, the employer decided to remove a department when a specific job order failed to materialize, in order to maintain unaltered the business profit. This choice, in the opinion of the competent Court, cannot be argued. The consequent dismissal, according to the Court, must be deemed lawful since it was for reasons related to the productive activity, work management and normal operation of the activity. Therefore, once having verified the effectiveness of such reorganization and the consequent removal of the job position, dismissal had to be considered fully valid. This judgement falls within a case-law trend that is becoming increasingly more common (see judgements No. 25201/2016, 25197/2013, 7474/2012 and 15157/2011), even if it was not issued unanimously (see judgement of the Court of Cassation No. 14871/2017 according to which in order to have economic dismissal, in addition to corporate reorganization, it is also necessary to prove the effective need to reduce costs to face unfavourable conditions).