Short answer. Yes. The Labor Code allows a probationary employee's services to be terminated for a just cause at any point, separately from the six-month probationary limit and separately from the standards used to judge whether you qualify as regular. A just cause does not wait for the probationary period to run its course.
What the law says
The services of an employee who has been engaged on a probationary basis may be terminated for a just cause or when he fails to qualify as a regular employee in accordance with reasonable standards made known by the employer to the employee at the time of his engagement.
Labor Code, Article 281 — Probationary Employment. Read the full provision →
Just cause is its own, separate ground
Article 281 lists two grounds on which a probationary employee's services may be terminated: for a just cause, or when he fails to qualify as a regular employee in accordance with reasonable standards. These are connected by "or" — they are alternatives, not steps in a sequence. Nothing in the article makes the just-cause ground dependent on the six-month probationary period having run its course first.
Why the six-month figure does not control this ground
The six-month limit in Article 281 answers a different question: how long probationary employment may last before it must convert to regular employment. It caps the probationary period; it does not set a floor before a just cause can be acted on. A just cause, once it exists, is available to the employer under this article regardless of how much of the probationary period has elapsed — the six months is not a shield that delays it.
What this means for timing
Because just cause and the six-month cap operate independently under the article, a probationary employee can, in principle, be dismissed for a just cause in the first week of employment just as much as in the fifth month. The article does not require the employer to wait, nor does it require the employer to first test whether the employee would have failed to qualify under the reasonable-standards ground before invoking just cause.
Where the just causes are actually written down
Article 281 uses the phrase without defining it, but the list is not far away. Article 282 sets out the causes for which an employer may terminate an employment: serious misconduct or wilful disobedience by the employee of the lawful orders of his employer or representative in connection with his work; gross and habitual neglect by the employee of his duties; fraud or wilful breach by the employee of the trust reposed in him by his employer or duly authorised representative; commission of a crime or offence by the employee against the person of his employer, an immediate member of his family, or his duly authorised representative; and other analogous causes. The wording repays attention — neglect must be both gross and habitual, disobedience must be wilful and directed at a lawful order connected with the work. A probationary employee is measured against these same causes; probation does not lower the bar for what counts as one.
What Article 281 does not spell out
This article states that termination for a just cause is available; it does not itself list what counts as a just cause, and it does not itself describe any procedure that must be followed before dismissal. Those questions sit outside what this provision addresses. If you are facing dismissal on this ground, what actually happened and how it was carried out will matter far more than the bare fact that "just cause" was invoked by your employer.
Related provisions
- Labor Code, Article 281 — Probationary Employment
- Labor Code, Article 282 — Just Causes For Dismissal