We terminated an employee in January because we eliminated her position.
We now find that the work is just too much for one person and will need to reactivate the position. Must we offer the position to the person we terminated when the position was eliminated?

It's just my opinion but I don't see why you'd be required to recall a laid-off worker that separated 7 months. The only exception that rings in the back of my mind is if a severance agreement existed with such a provision included.

Meghan: I know you are one of our resident California experts. Any insight?

Another possible exception would be if the laid off employee was a union member.

Otherwise, I agree with robb that nothing in the law requires you to offer this opening to the former employee.

The only time that I would suggest that, other than what has already been suggested, is if you think she might be considering a discrimination or wrongful termination claim against your company. In that case, you will cut off her damages by giving her the job back.

I fail to see why you wouldn't want the employee back, unless they were not performing their duties well enough. In which case they really should have had the opotunity to correct. The high costs accosiated with training new employees (loss, extra ot, lower production, extra load on coworkers, employee loyalty, etc) really doesn't make much sense to me.

I suspect you already have someone in mind though.

After 7 months does she even want the job back?

I would call that former employee and be honest with the situation. Although from personal experience, don't be surprised if there is more compensation requested for basically the same job, but as was stated before, less training will be involved.

I think you are missing the point here. The OP didn't ask, "should I offer the position to her," he asked, "Must I?" That implies that he very musch does not want her back, for whatever reason. And he doesn't have to have her back, let alone pay her more for the privilege.