Every year the same thing happens. July moves inexorably towards a well-deserved summer vacation, the offices and work centers are emptying little by little and, just then, the letters that no employee wants to receive begin to arrive: the dismissal letter.
Alejandro Llanomanager of the legal office of UGT Catalonia, denounces a type of dismissal that is not officially recognized in the Workers’ Statute, but is well known to those who must defend the rights of workers: “There is a type of dismissal that does not appear in the law but is the most popular: the dismissal in July. In the last fortnight it is incredible.”
The deadline runs even if you are not there. The key to Llano’s complaint lies in a detail that may go unnoticed, but is decisive in challenging a dismissal. He article 59.3 of the Workers’ Statute establishes that there is a period of 20 business days to challenge a dismissal in Spain. That is, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays do not count.
On the other hand, the article 183 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary declares August as a non-working month for “all judicial actions, except those that are declared urgent by procedural laws. However, the General Council of the Judiciary, through regulations, may enable them for the purposes of other actions.” One of the cases in which the month of August is enabled as a business month is, according to article 43.2. of the Social Jurisdiction Lawthe dismissal of workers.
That’s the trick. The Law Regulating Social Jurisdiction declares August a non-working month for almost everything, but makes an exception for layoffs, as it is an urgent procedure, generating confusion among laid-off workers, who may miss the deadline to challenge their dismissal thinking that justice “is closed for vacation.”
“The rule, wanting to benefit the worker, is harming them, declaring August a business day for layoffs,” laments Llano. A dismissal notified on July 20 begins to expire while half the country is on the beach.
When there is no lawyer available. Furthermore, moving the challenge of the dismissal to August has another perverse cost for employees: finding someone to defend you in time. “In August it is difficult to find a lawyer. Many offices are closed, because lawyers also take vacations,” highlights Llano.
The specialized office Bermejo i Alegret, confirm the same phenomenon of increased layoffs in July from another trench. In his case, he speaks of a “silent practice with high legal costs” and warns of an aggravating circumstance in which the company knows that the worker is on vacation and even outside the country to begin the dismissal process. In these cases, the lawyer assures that “the courts can interpret this conduct as an indication of imbalance in the relationship” and point out the violation of your right of defense, tipping the balance towards the recognition of an unfair or even void dismissal.
A phenomenon that statistics do not see. Here another paradox arises that, in part, explains why this continues to happen. Despite what Llano and other labor lawyers denounce from their daily experience, there is no official data that reveals how many ordinary layoffs occur during the month of July.
The Ministry of Labor only measures collective dismissals on a monthly basis through its Employment Regulation Statisticswhich in July 2025 counted 4,864 laid-off workers, compared to 3,898 layoffs June or the 992 of September of that same year. These layoffs only tell part of the story, collective layoffs are growing, yes, but they only tell part of the story since they represent a percentage of total layoffs.
The bulk of layoffs, individual and objective, are counted annually in the Dismissal Statistics and their Costwhich totaled 643,681 layoffs in the latest records of 2024, without the possibility of breaking them down month by month. The General Council of the Judiciary also does not monthly list the figures for dismissal claimsand only provides the quarterly and annual data. Therefore, we are faced with a phenomenon that, although labor lawyers see it repeated every summer, remains invisible to official statistics.
Image | Wikimedia Commons (Cberbell)
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings