In Ecuador, companies massively dismiss their workers in the midst of a health emergency

The Café de la Vaca restaurant chain decided to close its stores and terminate the employment contracts of its employees.

Several businesses and companies have remained closed due to the health emergency in Ecuador, this causes havoc in the labor market, since due to the temporary or total closure many companies had to reduce their payroll and, in the worst case, definitively close their businesses.


The Café de la Vaca closes from Thursday, April 30 due to cessation of operations. The dismissal notification reached workers the day before, via WhatsApp. The representative of Café de la Vaca, faced with the layoffs, said they sought funds to sustain the operation, but the current conditions did not allow it.

Some employers have used subsection 6 of section 169 of the Labor Code to reduce payroll in their companies.

This norm says that: “By fortuitous event or force majeure that makes the work impossible, such as fire, earthquake, storm, explosion, plagues of the field, war and, in general, any other extraordinary event that the contractors could not foresee or that foreseen, they couldn’t help it. “

According to the Ministerial Agreement MDT-2020-081, companies that avail themselves of this clause of the Labor Code must:

Register in the Unified Work System the foundations that support the termination of the contract, within 24 hours.
The recorded information will be the sole responsibility of the employer.
Employers who do not perform this registration will be penalized in accordance with Article 7 of Constitutional Mandate 8 (Up to 20 basic wages).
Notify the worker of the termination of the individual employment contract.
Likewise, several media outlets such as Diario La Hora also announced this week the dismissal of workers, under cover of article 169, where they talk about the “fortuitous case or force majeure”

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