Hello,
One of my acquaintances got a job offer letter, wherein start date is 5 months from now, ie starting in September.
In this regard, want to know - the legal situation:
1. if the contract is signed, is it mandatory to start ? Can it be terminated from employee perspective before the joining date. Are there any consequences from Swiss legal perspective for this scenario. (eg: if an another better job offer comes through in the next few months).
2. If employer terminates - what is the legal situation ?
cheers
both can terminate, I have seen it happen many times (candidates got a better offer). Also concerning the "mandatory to start" part, most contracts have a notice period of 1 week during the probationary period, so even if you start you can leave a week after that.
You can give the seven days notice before the contract starts.
@notallThere : is it the swiss law that prior to 7 days can be cancelled
If you don't want it, just give notice.
If this person intends to not take that job, best would be to inform the employer as soon as possible - as a courtesy. That way, they can look for someone else instead. It happens all the time; with such advance notice, usually not a big deal (even though I would not expect this company would consider the candidate again in the future).
They can, of course, resign during the 3-month probation period with a 7-day notice as already mentioned by previous posters.
If they just don not show up, theoretically, the employer could claim a penalty of 1/4 of a monthly salary to compensate for costs caused by that. This is stipulated by art. 337d of the Code of Obligations and can be contested at a court. https://lawbrary.ch/law/art/OR-v2022.01-en-art-337d/
The legal situation is written in the contract. Impossible to tell you, without knowing "your friends" contract. Some contracts have binding clauses on those topics in them. I have seen contracts that included a financial penalty when either side decided to terminate the contract before the starting date. So you'd have to pay if you decide to not show up. However, there is a very short notice period for the trial period... typically five working days for either side. So legally the worst case that can happen is that you show up on your first day, hand in resignation and legally be off by friday. No employer has any interest on that, so you ideally talk about it openly.