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Effective January 1, 2026, New Hampshire will add new employment protections for certain employees whose spouses are involuntarily mobilized for military service. House Bill 225, signed into law in July 2025, provides job security and reinstatement protections during a spouse's mobilization, meaning these employees cannot be discharged, denied employment, or subjected to adverse action because of their spouse's mobilization. The law applies to employers with fifty (50) or more employees at a single location in New Hampshire, creating a safeguard for military families during times of deployment.
The new law is designed to fill a gap in existing protections. While federal law, such as the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), provides job security for service members themselves, HB 225 extends similar protections to their spouses, recognizing the unique challenges they face when a partner is called to duty. Involuntary mobilizations often require spouses to manage household responsibilities, care for children, and navigate sudden logistical changes. By ensuring job stability, the law seeks to acknowledge the role military spouses play.
The new statute, RSA 110-C:1-a, creates three (3) obligations for covered New Hampshire employers:
1. Employers may not discharge, refuse to hire, or take other adverse action because an employee's spouse is involuntarily mobilized;
2. Employers must reemploy the employee when the employee returns from leave—generally to the same role or one of like seniority, status, and pay for which the employee is qualified – for a period of time tied to the same duration of time the spouse would have reemployment rights under USERRA; and
3. Upon an employee's notification to an employer of their spouse's involuntary mobilization, employers must provide employees with written acknowledgment of receipt of the notice of deployment, explicitly confirming adherence to the terms of RSA 110-C:1-a.
RSA 110-C:1-a expressly provides that "any leave of absence of an employee due to the involuntary mobilization of their spouse shall be unpaid, and no benefits or accrual of benefits shall be provided during this leave unless the employer chooses to do so."
Employees are required to provide their employer with notice of a covered mobilization within 30 days of their spouse receiving official notice. Pursuant to the statutory terms, an "involuntary mobilization" means the ordering, calling-up, or activation of members of the uniformed services under 10 U.S.C.A. (Armed Forces) or 32 U.S.C.A. (National Guard), including state active duty, in response to a declaration of war, national emergency, or contingency operation. A "spouse" includes those persons legally married to a member of the uniformed services.
Upon the spouse's completion of mobilization, the employee must report to work or submit a timely application for reemployment. As noted above, employers must reinstate the employee to work, with one limited exception. The statute permits employers to decline reinstatement of the employee if the employer certifies that its circumstances have so changed as to make reemployment impossible or unreasonable.
RSA 110-C creates a complaint process through the New Hampshire Department of Labor (NHDOL) and allows for remedies including reinstatement, back pay, lost benefits, and potentially attorney's fees. An employee must file a complaint with the NHDOL within 180 days of the alleged violation. The NHDOL is expressly required, by statute, to adopt rules governing the complaint process. It is anticipated that the NHDOL will not only adopt procedural rules, but will also clarify areas of RSA 110-a:1 that are not expressly defined in the statute, including how the law will apply to different types of absences and how the statute's referenced timeframes will be interpreted in practice.
For covered employers, the law means reviewing and updating leave policies, training supervisors to understand the new requirements, and communicating clearly with employees about how to request leave under HB 225. Preparing now will help businesses avoid compliance issues when the law takes effect.
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