Walking the Financial Bridge to New Employment
A person’s employment is part of their identity. When they lose their employment, through no fault of their own, it is very common for them to feel lost and betrayed.
There are typically three reasons a person loses their job: they resign, they get fired for cause, or they get terminated without cause. Oftentimes when a person gets terminated without cause, they are wrongfully dismissed. This does not mean that the loss of their job was in any way illegal, as an employer has the right to terminate any employee at any time, subject to a few exceptions. What the term “wrongfully dismissed” actually means is that an employee was terminated without being provided with the appropriate amount of compensation.
What is considered appropriate compensation will depend firstly on whether they have an employment contract or offer letter which sets out their rights upon termination, failing which, on factors such as age, length of service, character of employment and availability of similar employment, among others. The purpose of this compensation is to bridge the financial gap between losing one job and finding another
Losing one’s employment does not, however, lead to a windfall of money. It is a common misconception that if you lose your job even though you did nothing wrong, that you will end up winning something akin to the lottery, but that is not what the law is designed to do. The law is designed to help terminated employees through a difficult financial time, not to give them sufficient money to retire.
Nonetheless, if you have been terminated without cause, you may not have been provided with appropriate compensation. We are here to help determine what you are owed, and help you obtain it in the quickest way possible. While we will not encourage you to fight for unreasonable sums that the courts would never assign in the first place, we want you to be able to walk the financial bridge to new employment with confidence, and will encourage you to pursue the compensation to which you are entitled.