Fired from work on L4? You can do it very easily

Ian Clifford, an IT specialist employed in the British branch of IBM, was on sick leave for 15 years and then sued his employer in the labor court due to the fact that his salary was not indexed for inflation at that time. A court in Great Britain dismissed his lawsuit. The judge found that receiving such high benefits without having to work for a decade and a half was a privilege, not unequal treatment.

In Poland, no employee could be on sick leave for 15 years. He would have said goodbye to his job much sooner – legally.

Poles take L4 without a second thought. Employers are against the wall

In 2025, Poles spent a total of 290.5 million days on sick leave! At that time, ZUS registered 27.5 million certificates, which means that statistically every second insured employee went to L4.

The average length of one sick leave was 11 days, and on an annual basis, there was an average of 34 days of absence per sick person. ZUS calculated that of the entire pool of sick leave, as many as 9.8 million were sick leave for up to 5 days, of which 1.8 million were L4 issued for one day.

Although this is a major impediment to the labor market, employers cannot, in principle, dismiss an employee staying on L4, but the Labor Code provides for exceptions, including: serious breach of duty, crime or loss of professional qualifications. Moreover, courts in Poland believe that long-term and repeated sick leave may justify termination of the contract if it hinders the normal functioning of the company.

When will an employee be dismissed from work on sick leave? It depends on the contract

Labor courts do not take the side of employees. They increasingly indicate that frequent absences of an employee may negatively affect the interests of the employer. Companies operating in a competitive market must ensure continuity of work, therefore long-term or regular unavailability of an employee may constitute a justified basis for terminating an employment contract.

Unfortunately, this means that repeated or long sick leave may result in job loss. Similarly, when the contract is for a fixed period. In the case of employment shorter than 6 months, it is L4 lasting over 3 months, and in the case of employment longer than 6 months – after the so-called benefit period (usually 182 days).

The regulations only limit the moment at which an employer may terminate an employment contract immediately due to the employee’s fault. He has a maximum of one month to do so from the moment he receives information about the circumstances justifying the termination of the employment relationship without notice.