Chart of the day: Wrongful dismissal claims dips in 2021

26% of wrongful dismissal cases assessed were substantiated.

This chart from the Employment Standards Report 2021 revealed that wrongful dismissal claims dropped to 0.27 claims per 1,000 employees in 2021 compared to  0.39 claims per 1,000 employees in 2020.

The chart showed that wrongful dismissal claims were higher for local employees (0.34 claims per 1,000 local employees), as compared to foreign employees (0.10 claims per 1,000 foreign employees).

Of the wrongful claims assessed by the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) about a quarter or 26% of claims lodged in 2021 were substantiated.

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TADM would require the employer to address the claim such as by compensating the employee, clearing up any miscommunications and/or facilitating the employee’s job search. 62% of these claims were resolved at TADM, with the remaining 38% referred to ECT for adjudication. 

The remaining 74% of unsubstantiated claims, often involved disputes over work performance or had arisen due to miscommunication between the employer and employee. The employers had fulfilled their contractual or statutory obligations of employment termination with notice. 62% of these claims were resolved at TADM, with the remaining 38% referred to ECT  for adjudication.

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“The proportion of wrongful dismissal claims concluded at TADM within 2 months improved significantly from 70% in 2020 to 84% in 2021, which is similar to the pre-COVID levels. This improvement could be partly attributed to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions which allowed parties to meet and resolve their differences in person with the mediators’ assistance. In 2020, some of the disputes were protracted as parties were unable to resolve their disputes remotely, and/or were unable to access important documents in their offices,” the report said.