Dismissal for an economic, technical or organisational reason

An economic, technical or organisational (ETO) reason must be one that entails “changes in the workforce” (see page 62). ETO reasons for dismissal can include, for example:

• economic reasons: such as where the new business does not have sufficient demand for a product line produced by the transferor;

• technical reasons: such as where the new business needs to use new technology for which transferring employees lack skills and cannot reasonably be trained;

• organisational reasons: such as where merging two businesses together results in duplication of functions, or (under new TUPE) where a transferee operates at a different geographical location and relocating incoming staff is not feasible.