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If anyone has experience here: not paying wages is not the same as "letting someone go", "laying them off", or "firing" them, right? So if you have employment contract that has a signing bonus that needs to be returned if an employee willingly leaves within a time period but then the employee stops getting paid they can't leave the job without being on the hook for that signing bonus, right?

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It’s complicated and depends heavily on the jurisdiction.

In order for it to be involuntary termination, what you’d likely need is a situation in which you have worked and not been paid for that work and the employer refusing to do so. This would create illegal or intolerable working conditions, to which you’d then need to argue is constructive dismissal.

But you should speak to a qualified employment attorney.

This sounds like something that you should not take any advice offered for free over the internet. There are a lot of nuances in employment law and location specific parts.

Constructive dismissal and furlough are some terms you can research for more info.

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