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A manufacturing manager position is posted, interviewed and hired. The job is offered outside the company to a previous employee that wishes to return. The offer is made and he takes 3 weeks to accept it. Once he accepted it a start date was established. However, suddenly a family emergency keeps him from starting so it will be delayed four weeks. The new start date arrives and now suddenly it will be another 4 weeks before he can start.

Is it legal for a company to keep extending the job offer 10 weeks after it was accepted? Seems very unfair to the other employees who were also up for the position yet looked over because of their decision to hire this person who for one reason or another is yet to arrive.

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    Is it legal? Sure, they can extend it as long as they want or take back the offer. I'd lean toward rescinding the offer because it looks like this person is still interviewing, hoping to get a better offer. He's probably waiting for the job he really wants to make him an offer.
    – L_7337
    May 1, 2014 at 17:48

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It's perfectly legal for a company to push back the date as long as they like.

As far as the law is concerned this individual is an employee of the company hiring him, he just hasn't had is first day yet.

It's not unfair, technically he already won the spot in regards to resumes interviews, etc. The only thing here is I would say the delay before starting changing can be a red mark. He hasn't even started yet and he's shifting things around. I wouldn't blame a company for rescinding their offer (before or after presenting one to someone else).

But that's an argument of good management vs law which is well outside the scope of the question.

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Is it legal for a company to keep extending the job offer 10 weeks after it was accepted? Seems very unfair to the other employees who were also up for the position yet looked over because of their decision to hire this person who for one reason or another is yet to arrive.

Is it legal? Yes, there's no doubt that the company can continue to extent their job offer as long and as often as they choose. (At least in the US)

Is it unfair? Perhaps. Work isn't always fair, and people get passed over for a variety of reasons. In this case, the company appears to believe that their chosen individual is worth waiting for. And of course it's not clear that the other employees who were up for the position would have been chosen had this particular individual not been chosen.

This is work. Nothing illegal going on here. Fair is in the eyes of the beholder.

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