Malawi takes an unusual approach to notice periods: the required notice depends on your wage period — how often you are paid — combined with length of service.
If you are paid monthly
One month's notice, regardless of length of service.
If you are paid fortnightly
- 15 days with less than five years of service
- 30 days with at least five years
If you are paid weekly
- One week with less than two years
- Two weeks with two to five years
- One month with at least five years
If you are paid hourly or daily
- One day with less than six months
- One week from six months to two years
- 15 days from two to five years
- One month with at least five years
Payment in lieu
Instead of requiring you to work the notice, an employer can pay a sum equal to the wages you would have received during the notice period, along with all other benefits due up to its expiry.
Either party can also waive its right to notice.
Why the wage period matters more than you would expect
Two people doing the same job with the same service can be entitled to very different notice if one is paid monthly and the other daily.
If you are on a daily or hourly rate, your notice entitlement is considerably shorter in the early years — which is worth knowing before you accept that arrangement.
Other wage periods
Where the wage period is different from those listed — except an annual rate — either party may terminate at the end of a working day without notice.
Notice and severance are separate
Notice is owed on termination generally. Severance allowance only arises in the narrow economic-dismissal and unfair-dismissal circumstances the Act sets out.