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How to calculate the notice period for employment contracts?

On February 22, 2016, an amendment was introduced concerning, inter alia, the notice periods for fixed-term contracts. Currently, it makes no difference whether the employment contract is concluded for an indefinite period or for a closed period. The notice period for these contracts is the same. This principle is also applied in the case of concluding contracts for the period of replacement of a given employee, as this type has been classified as one of the types of fixed-term contracts.

Termination of contracts for an indefinite period and for a specified period

Art. 36 § 1 of the Labor Code stipulates that the period of notice of an employment contract concluded for an indefinite period and an employment contract concluded for a definite period depends on the period of employment with a given employer and amounts to:

2 weeks, if the employee has been employed for less than 6 months;
1 month, if the employee has been employed for at least 6 months;
3 months, if the employee has been employed for at least 3 years.

Transitional provisions and a fixed-term contract

In addition, attention should be paid to contracts that were concluded before February 22, 2016 for a period of up to 6 months or concluded for a period longer than 6 months, which do not provide for the possibility of terminating them with a 2-week notice, in the scope of the admissibility of their termination, the regulations in force before February 22, 2016.

New provisions shall apply to employment contracts concluded before February 22, 2016, for a definite period longer than 6 months, in which they may be terminated with a 2-week notice period. Accordingly, when calculating the length of the notice period, the amended Art. 36 of the Labor Code referred to above. The notice periods will depend on the duration of your employment with your employer.

Attention!

In this case, the employment counter of a given employee in the workplace is reset to zero, which means that the length of service is counted from the moment the new regulations enter into force, i.e. from February 22, 2016.

This may lead to a situation where an employee employed, for example, from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2019, must work until February 21, 2019 in order to have a 3-month notice period.

A different situation will take place when the employer hires an employee after February 22, 2016 - the period of notice of the employment contract will depend on whether the employee has previously worked for this employer. If this was the case, e.g. for a period of three years, then when you take up employment with this employer again, the notice period at the conclusion of the contract will be three months.

Termination period for contracts for a trial period

The notice periods for employment contracts concluded for a trial period remain unchanged.

Art. 34 of the Labor Code provides that the probationary period is:

3 working days if the trial period does not exceed 2 weeks;
1 week, if the trial period is longer than 2 weeks;
2 weeks if the trial period is 3 months.

The period of notice for the replacement contract

The replacement contract has currently been classified as one of the types of fixed-term contract. Therefore, the terms of termination of these contracts will be the same as for other employment contracts. Currently, there is no 3-day notice period for these contracts, and it will depend on the period of employment with a given employer.