Dear Atty. Joji,

My friend received a formal job offer from a private company for a regular position. After reviewing the offer, my friend signed the document and emailed it back to the company’s HR department on the same day. The offer indicated that the start date would be a few days later. Believing he was already employed, my friend turned down several other job offers he had received around the same time. However, before the start date, the company suddenly withdrew the offer. Is there already an employer-employee relationship between them? Can he go after the company for doing this?

Miguel

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Dear Miguel,

An employment contract, like any other contract, is perfected at the moment the parties come to agree upon its terms and conditions, and thereafter, concur in the essential elements thereof. A contract is perfected upon the concurrence of the following requisites: (1) the consent of the contracting parties; (2) an object certain, which is the subject matter of the contract; and (3) the cause of the obligation. “Consent” is manifested by the meeting of the offer and the acceptance upon the thing and the cause which are to constitute the contract. For consent to be valid, the “offer” must be certain, and the “acceptance” must be absolute. A contract is deemed perfected from the time the acceptance is made known to the offeror. Without the offeror’s knowledge of the acceptance, there is no meeting of the minds of the parties, and thus, no real concurrence of offer and acceptance.

In a recent case, the Supreme Court has reiterated that once a job offer is accepted, an employer-employee relationship is already formed. In the case of Paolo Landayan Aragones v. Alltech Biotechnology Corporation G.R. No. 251736, 2 April 2025 the high court ruled:

“An employment contract, like any other contract, is perfected at the moment the parties come to agree upon its terms and conditions, and thereafter, concur in the essential elements thereof. Based on these requirements, the Court finds that an employment contract between Aragones and All tech was perfected on 18 April 2016. This conclusion is supported by the following undisputed facts: (a) Alltech made an offer that is certain through the Job Offer; (b) Aragones unequivocally accepted this offer by affixing his signature thereon on 18 April 2016; and (c) he informed Alltech of his acceptance by sending a copy of the signed Job Offer to respondent Octavio Eckhardt (Eckhardt) via e-mail on the same day. Thus, All tech cannot claim that it validly withdrew its job offer in view of the general rule that an offer, once accepted, cannot be withdrawn.”

In light of the foregoing, it is clear that an employment contract was perfected the moment the offer was accepted and communicated to the employer. As such, the laws governing employer-employee relationships, including those on security of tenure, illegal dismissal, etc. already apply from then on.

Hope this helps.

Atty. Joji Alonso