Published: 02 November 2026
New ruling from the Constitutional Court on the regime of protection for employers who do not meet the company size requirements as per Art. 18 of the Italian Workers’ Statute (i.e. more than 15 employees per production unit or per municipality, or more than 60 in Italy), extending the compensation recognisable in the event of unlawful dismissal of workers hired before 7 March 2015.
After decision 118/2025, with which the Constitutional Court eliminated the maximum limit of six months’ salary provided for by Legislative Decree 23/2015 for workers subject to the so-called growing protections (read our newsflash «Unlawful layoffs by small businesses: the ruling of the Constitutional Court» of 25 July 2025), the Court has now ruled on the regulations applicable to workers hired prior to the reform of the Jobs Act.
With decision 174, filed on 22 October 2026, the Constitutional Court, in fact, declared the unlawfulness of Art. 8 of Law 604/1966, with reference to the part that stipulates that compensation can only be increased if employees number more than fifteen in total: ordinarily between 2.5 and 6 months’ salary, this may be increased to 10 months’ salary, in the case of more than ten years’ service and to14 months’ salary, for more than twenty years’ service. According to the Court, this limited range of compensation (2.5-6 months) did not allow judges to ensure accurate personalisation of the damage, nor to guarantee adequacy of the compensation and its necessary function as a deterrent for employers, even in the presence of dismissals that were seriously unlawful.
Elimination of the company size requirement means that from now on, even for employees of companies with less than 15 workers (hired before 7 March 2015) compensation may go from 2.5 to 10 months’ salary, in the case of more than ten years’ service (now accrued by all those hired before 7 March 2015), and from 2.5 to 14 months’ salary if the length of service is more than twenty years. In any case, for the purposes of determining compensation, the relevance of the criteria provided for by law remains without prejudice, including company size, years of service and behaviour and conditions of the parties.
For employees hired after 7 March 2015, the compensation range remains at 3 to 18 months’ salary provided for by Art. 9, paragraph 1, of Legislative Decree 23/2015 as corrected by Constitutional Court decision 118/2025.
Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo is at your disposal should you need any further clarification and/or details.