Things You Should Know about Offer Letter
Background informtion: labor dispute caused by offer letter
Our client was planning to expand it’s business after this CNY. They interviewed some applicants and sent out offer letters to qualified ones. In the offer letters, they specified all terms related to the positions, such as salary, probation, social security and on-board date, etc. However, after the CNY, they have to give up the expanding plan due to some unexpected reason and have to “revoke” the offer letters. They called me and asked, could they?
Let's see what does the law say about offer letter?
Actually, there is no clear specification in labor law about the nature and validity of an offer letter. But according to Contract Law of PRC, an offer letter with specific terms is an “offer”, such an offer could only be revoked before the applicant send out a confirmation of his/her acceptance of such offer. Otherwise, the offer letter is binding to both party.
So, though the labor law doesn’t specify anything particular, employer still has to be very careful with offer letter.
The following are the tips:
1. Not to issue an offer letter until you have made the final decision.
Employers may issue an offer letter, only after they have decided to hire the employee, and theycan’t change the content of it unilaterally once it’s been sent out.
2. Try to retain some initiative
Employer could specify in the offer letter some situations under which the employer could choose not to hire the applicant; or specify a deadline for the applicant to confirm their acceptance of this offer, if the applicant can’t give their confirmation before the deadline, the employer could cancel the offer and findsomeone else instead.
3. Ask for medicalexamination report before sending out offer letter
Some employers’ recruitment routine are like this: theywill send out an offer letter and ask the applicant to take along with them amedical examination report on the on-board day, among other papers, such as graduationcertificate etc...
4. Offer letter is not labor contract
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