Il contributo è destinato al Trattato di diritto del lavoro, diretto da F. Carinci e M. Persiani, volume sui Licenziamenti, a cura di E. Gragnoli, di prossima pubblicazione per Cedam, Padova.

The paper aims at reconstructing the main lines of the doctrine and jurisprudence on the notice of dismissal, covering all the issues that have been discussed (such as juridical nature and scope of the rule, effects of the violation of the rule, lenght of the notice period, indemnity in lieu of notice) and focusing on the effects of the adoption of the theory of the mandatory efficacy of the rule which imposes to give notice of the dismissal.
Finally the paper gives a short comment on the new provisions of the Fornero reform on the retroactive efficacy of the dismissal at the beginnig of the dismissal procedure  introduced by the reform for the economic dismissal and at the beginning of the disciplinary dismissal procedure provided by the Italian workers’ Statute.