Finland Proposes Amendment to Revise the Threshold for Termination

Legally acceptable grounds for the dismissal of an employee may soon be revised in Finland. On October 23, 2025, the Finnish government proposed amendments to the country’s Employment Contracts Act, which would lower the threshold for terminating employment on individual grounds. If it passes, the amendment will take effect on January 1, 2026.

Under the revised threshold, employers would only need “proper reasons” to terminate an employee, rather than “proper and weighty reasons,” which are currently required to justify dismissal. Arbitrary, discriminatory, or minor grounds for termination are still prohibited, and employers are still required to provide employees with a warning before terminating them.

The proposal’s authors initially sought to explicitly define underperformance as legitimate grounds for dismissal, but this clause was later dropped.

The amendment also relaxes the employer’s general obligation to consider alternative work for dismissed employees. According to DLA Piper, the proposed amendment states that employers would only “need to offer alternative work if the employee’s work capacity has changed during employment,” for example, in cases of illness, injury, or accident.

Source: DLA Piper