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tract. Advantages of this way of ending an employment contract is that no period of terminationhas to be considered and the employee is usually not causing any further problems(employment lawsuits). However, in most cases the employee is not entitled to unemploymentbenefits for twelve weeks as he is reliable for his unemployment by signinga cancellation agreement. Therefore employers offer sufficient financial compensation orother benefits.4.3.4 Termination of the Employment Contract by giving NoticeBoth, the employee and the employer do have the right of terminating the employmentcontract, but the latter has to meet higher legal requirements in case of unilateral termination.There are two kinds of termination in German labour law: ordinary and extraordinarytermination. In both cases a written notice of termination is necessary (§ 623 BGB).Verbal notices are invalid and have to be redone. If a notice is given by a representativeof the employer, he/she has to assure that proof of power for this measure is presentedto the employee.An ordinary termination leads to the ending of the employment relationship after the applicablenotice period expires. The notice period is determined by law (§ 622 BGB) andtakes at least four weeks and may be up to seven months, depending upon the length ofthe employment. The employer and the employee can agree on a longer notice period,however, a shorter period is invalid. If there is a worker´s council the employer has toconsult it before giving notice of termination to the employee. However, the work´s councilopinion is not binding (§ 102 BetrVG). Termination without proper hearing of theworks council is invalid.There is no notice period to be obtained in case of an extraordinary termination (§ 626BGB). The employment relationship ends immediately. For an extraordinary terminationserious reasons are needed which make it, in good faith, unacceptable to continue theemployment relationship until the end of the notice period. It is only permissible within 14days after knowledge of the facts of the serious reason.If a labour court holds a termination notice invalid, the employer must pay the employee´ssalary for the entire duration of the proceedings. Furthermore, the employer isobliged to reemploy the employee.31