Hi,
Today I would like to examine very briefly how the employment duration of an employee is computed whenever the employment does not encompass all calendar days in the month subject to assuming that the employee has worked for at least 4 hours a day.
So, the legal requirements are set forth in articles 355, para. 3 of the Labour Code and article 9, para. 3 of respective Regulation. We can summarize them as follows:
| Actual working days of the employee | Number of working days in the month | |
| < 21 | ≥ 21 | |
| All | 1 month | 1 month |
| Not all, but at least 21 | — | 1 month |
| Not all and less than 21 | Calendar days in employment | Calendar days in employment |
We are affected by the requirement to recognize a full month when all working days in the month have actually been worked out whenever the month starts or finishes with days-off. In 2016 such months are January, April, May, July, October and December. For example, if an employee starts his employment on 3rd of October 2016 we are obliged to recognize 1 month of employment for October and not only 29 days since 1st and 2nd of October are weekend days. The situation is similar if the employee leaves us on 28th of April – once again we have to recognize full month and not 28 days since 29th and 30th of April are days-off.
The second criterion to recognize full month is to have at least 21 days worked out over the month. Of course this criterion cannot be met in months with working days that are less than 21, however in months such as March, June, August and November 2016, it could happen that we have to apply it. For example, if the employment starts on 2nd of June 2016 we have to recognize full month instead of 29 days since the employee would have worked out 21 working days. Same will happen if the employee leaves us on 29th of August – again instead of 29 days we have to recognize 1 calendar month.
Whenever an employee has worked less than 21 working days and has failed to work out all working days in the month, the employment duration is computed by counting the respective calendar days.
Of course we’d better pay attention not to double count days already recognized as employment by the previous employer. After all, article 355, para.5 of the Labour Code tells us that “recognized employment duration shall not be longer than the time actually worked out”.
