Zero Hour Contract

Zero-hour contracts

  • Zero-hour contracts do not specify the number of hours which the employee is required to work per week.
  • With zero-hour contracts, the employer is not obliged to guarantee a specified minimum number of hours, and the employee is only required to be available to perform his/her duties whenever the employer so requests.
  • These contracts are mostly used in sectors where the workload fluctuates between seasons such as tourism, English language schools and entertainment. Zero-hour contracts
    With the introduction of the subsidiary legislation 452.126 – TPWC as from the 1st August 2022, zero-hours contracts are no longer permissible except in two circumstances:
    a) When the employee is a full-time student.
    b) Where the nature of the activity concerned requires the availability of replacement workers on short notice. This applies as long as the employee has a full-time employment elsewhere.
    With this legal notice, employers must now include in the employees’ employment contract the number of guaranteed paid hours and the remuneration for such hours.