Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of employers' motives behind outplacement activities, the relationship between these motives, and the specific activities of firms in outplacement. Design/methodology/approach - Theoretical assumptions were tested on a sample of 431 German firms, differentiating between specific outplacement activities and asking in detail about motives and rationales of outplacement. Factor analysis and Mann-Whitney U-Tests are applied. Findings - Different types of motives can be identified and related to theoretical approaches. The relative importance of different motives is influenced by several situational and structural factors. The types of motives have an impact on the termination benefits offered to redundant employees. Originality/value - Termination benefits are increasingly gaining importance, but the theoretical and empirical knowledge about the incidence, structure, motives, and effects of outplacement is still limited. This paper extends previous studies by shedding more light on the economic motives of employers to invest in outplacement activities, the determinants of these motives and the relationship between motives and specific bundles of activities.