Article 16 of the Labor Contract Law stipulates: "A labor contract shall come into effect after the employer and the employee reach an agreement through consultation and sign or seal the text of the labor contract." According to this provision, we can see that the seal of the employer is not a necessary element for the labor contract to take effect. In the absence of special agreement, the signatures of both parties to the labor contract can show that the labor contract is valid. Just because there is no official seal, it is legally untenable to assume that the labor contract has not taken effect.

In order to prevent hidden dangers, when signing a labor contract, it is best to ask the employer to sign and affix the official seal. However, in real life, labor contracts that are only signed but not sealed or only sealed and not signed are often seen, which are divided into the following three situations:

I. The legal representative of the employing unit signs a labor contract. The behavior of the legal representative can be directly regarded as the behavior of the employer, so the legal representative can prove the validity of the labor contract by signing.

Secondly, the person signing the labor contract is the person in charge of the administrative or human resource management department of the employer. According to the relevant provisions of Article 63 of the General Principles of Civil Law and Article 49 of the Contract Law on agency by estoppel, workers have every reason to believe that the person in charge of the administrative or human resources management department has been authorized by the employer before signing, and his words and deeds can be regarded as the expression of the true meaning of the unit. Therefore, under normal circumstances, the labor contract they signed should be deemed valid.

Third, the labor contract only has the official seal of the employer. The official seal has the highest effect among all seals and can represent the will of the legal person. The official seal means that the organization has approved the contract.