Although the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the job market is still unknown, it is possible to identify some of the main effects on employers, employees and workplaces. This article highlights government measures taken to date to help employers avoid terminations (eg, by suspending employment contracts or reducing working hours or salaries) and enable remote working and considers the pandemic's impact on workplaces and social security contributions.

If an employee makes an invention as part of an employment relationship and if the exploitation of the invention falls within their employer's field of work, the employee must inform their employer. The Maritime and Commercial Court recently found that an engineer had not duly informed his employer of an invention and had therefore failed to discharge his duty to provide information under the Act on Employee Inventions.

A referendum recently approved the '23 frs, c'est un minimum' ('23 Swiss francs is a minimum') initiative, introducing a minimum wage of Sfr23 (approximately £19, $25 or €22) per hour in the canton of Geneva, which has applied since 1 November 2020. The Cantonal Office for Work Inspection and Labour Relations may issue penalties in the event of non-compliance with the new minimum wage, including administrative fines of up to Sfr30,000.

With reports of businesses increasingly taking steps to monitor staff who are working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a key question that has emerged is whether employers can actively monitor those who are working remotely and, if so, how intrusive can that monitoring be? This article discusses the legal considerations and how employers can strike an appropriate and fair balance between work and home life.

From 31 January 2021 two new immigration routes will be introduced for British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) citizens and their adult children who were born on or after 1 July 1997. These two routes are BN(O) status holder and BN(O) household member. The Home Office recently published the detailed Immigration Rules for these routes, which this article summarises.