Expectant Workers Face Rising Job Cuts as Portugal Overhauls Parental Leave

The numbers are moving in the wrong direction. Fresh figures delivered to the Commission for Equality in Labour and Employment (CITE) reveal that well over 2,000 employment relationships involving pregnant workers or parents on leave were terminated last year, pushing unions to warn that 2025 may look even worse. At the very moment Portuguese lawmakers debate a tighter net of protections and a longer licença parental, companies large and small continue to search for legal exits that let them cut staff without paying a reputational price.

An Uncomfortable Record in 2024

CITE’s annual balance sheet shows 2,170 employer communications about intended dismissals or contract expirations affecting expectant mothers, postpartum employees, lactating workers and parents on leave. Nearly nine out of every ten notices concerned the non-renewal of fixed-term contracts, a tactic critics describe as a convenient disguise for pregnancy-related discrimination. Even so, employers still flagged 138 outright dismissals, the highest tally in five years. The agency’s president, Carla Tavares, stresses that the numbers do not tell whether discrimination is truly on the rise or if firms are merely complying better with the reporting duty. Either way, the obligation to notify CITE has not stopped women—especially those with foreign names—from losing their jobs.

The Legal Shield—and Its Holes

Portuguese labour law treats dismissal of a pregnant or breastfeeding employee as a near impossibility: it is presumed unlawful unless CITE issues a favourable opinion and a court later confirms just cause. Yet the system contains a controversial escape hatch. If the commission stays silent for 30 days, the law deems its opinion tacitly favourable to the employer. That loophole is precisely what the eco-animal party PAN wants to slam shut with a bill that would force CITE to pronounce on every case. In practice, the current silence-equals-green-light rule pushes some women out of work before the commission ever intervenes.

Courtrooms Take a Stand

Recent rulings illustrate how judges are steering the debate. In February 2024, the Lisbon Court of Appeal halted a planned dismissal of a lactating employee because the company skipped the required CITE opinion. Ten months later, the same court ordered an employer to pay an aggravated indemnity of 30 days of pay per year of service after cutting a pregnant worker loose during what it called a fictitious trial period. The Porto and Guimarães appeal courts have reached different conclusions on how far those aggravated awards stretch, but they are united on one point: any dismissal that ignores mandatory prenatal safeguards is null and void, and employers must reinstate or compensate generously.

Parental Leave Set for a Growth Spurt

While tribunals police bad behaviour, Parliament is rewriting the rules that govern time off with newborns. From 1 January 2025, the standard initial leave could expand to a minimum of 180 days and up to 240 days if both parents share the break, all paid at 100% by Social Security. The government’s draft also proposes that fathers take 14 consecutive days immediately after birth within a 28-day compulsory window, tightening a requirement many firms still treat loosely. Extra weeks are on the table for premature births and long neonatal stays, while breast-feeding breaks may be capped at the child’s second birthday. One contentious clause would repeal the short “gestational grief” leave, folding miscarriage into general family-care absences instead.

The Human Cost Behind the Statistics

Labour federations UGT and CGTP argue that structural factors—persistent job precarity, widespread fixed-term hiring and economic headwinds in retail and hospitality—explain the surge in problematic terminations. They point to call-centres where temporary contracts outnumber permanent ones three to one, and to logistics hubs where subcontractors swap staff every season. “When a warehouse loses a client, a pregnant picker is the first to find her badge deactivated,” one CGTP official told reporters. Acts of subtle discrimination rarely leave paper trails, making it hard for victims to prove motive even when the timing is suspicious.

What Workers Need to Know Now

Employment lawyers insist that timing and paperwork are critical. A pregnant worker should deliver an updated medical certificate the moment she learns of her condition, creating a written record that activates the legal presumption of unlawfulness for any future dismissal. If a contract is not renewed, she can challenge the decision in court within 60 days. Parents on leave have similar deadlines. Because tribunals can award all lost wages plus an aggravated indemnity, companies often settle once a claim is filed, but only if the worker moves quickly.

Why 2025 Could Break the Trend—or Cement It

With business groups lobbying for lighter bureaucracy and family-policy advocates demanding stronger safeguards, the coming parliamentary session will test political will. Should PAN’s amendment pass and the new parental leave package survive intact, Portugal would boast one of Europe’s longest fully paid leave regimes and a stricter dismissal filter. Yet CITE’s limited resources and the complexity of court battles may still leave loopholes wide enough for bad employers to exploit. For the country’s 4.9M female workers, the stakes are as immediate as the next doctor’s appointment—and as far-reaching as the choice to start a family in the first place.