Seasonal work - what form of employment to choose?
Seasonal work is definitely a trending topic. Such short-term professional activity allows you to earn extra money for your home budget, and also opens the door to new fields and industries, giving you the opportunity to gain valuable skills and broaden your horizons. What forms can temporary work take? Which of them are the most profitable for employees? This is analysed by Oliwia Szopa, lawyer and trainee attorney-at-law at LeasingTeam Group. We invite you to read her article.
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Seasonal work is a type of employment that occurs most often in tourism, agriculture or gastronomy. It is characterized – as the name suggests – by its short duration, it lasts only for a certain season or period, not long in nature.
Seasonal employment can take place both on the basis of an employment contract and a civil law contract (generally a mandate or a specific task). The legal effects of these agreements naturally vary.
An employment contract brings many benefits, such as sick pay, paid annual leave, and a certain level of protection against dismissal. However, these rights are accompanied by obligations, such as inflexibility in the number of working hours and working hours.
A contract for specific work is an agreement in which the person accepting the order undertakes to perform a specific work. An undoubted advantage of this agreement is the lack of social security advances. However, in order to safely use this option, the contract must indeed be the so-called result contract, i.e. lead to the production of a specific work, and one that, according to ZUS, is characterized by a kind of creative, individual character (a bit like a work with artistic features).
A contract of mandate from the insurance side may in principle correspond to an employment contract. However, it does not give the right to leave and is easily dissolvable by nature. However, it is characterized – unlike an employment contract – by greater freedom of the contractor in deciding how and when the mandate should be performed.
A temporary employment contract – as the name suggests – is a contract that is by definition dedicated to seasonal (i.e. temporary) work. This form of employment includes employment under an employment contract as well as under a contract of mandate. A temporary employment contract is a kind of “overlay” on other employment relationships, but it does not significantly change their basic principles and assumptions
In principle, the type of contract cannot be chosen arbitrarily or randomly. First of all, due to the characteristics of the position, it will sometimes be more appropriate to conclude an employment contract characterized by strong subordination of the employee to the employer’s management. Sometimes it will be the other way around – freedom in the manner and organization of the performance of the entrusted work will speak for the admissibility of a civil law contract.
Seasonal workers will therefore face the dilemma of whether it is worth fighting for employment under an employment contract or, on the contrary, aiming for employment under a civil law contract. If greater flexibility (e.g. hourly or impact on the schedule) is what the seasonal worker needs, the commonly accepted absolute advantage of an employment contract over a civil law contract may not be a dream come true at all. Even for those for whom stability is the primary advantage of employment, an employment contract for seasonal activities may not be the best solution. Seasonal work is supposed to last several weeks, maybe months. During this time, it is difficult to acquire any special employee rights, including those affecting the durability of employment (i.e. significantly increase the notice period of the contract, which is 2 weeks for the first 6 months of employment under a regular employment contract). Naturally, the advantage of an employment contract is holiday entitlement. Again, however, the question arises: is the inherently relatively short seasonal employment relationship established in order to go on holiday during the contract, or rather to simply earn money for this holiday (or other future expenses).
When stepping into the proverbial “shoes” of a student looking for a summer job, or a 40-year-old with a mortgage granted for 20 years, the approach to seasonal work itself, as well as the form of employment to perform it, may be different. The fact remains, however, that seasonal work is primarily an opportunity to obtain additional funds in a short period of time, and does not serve to establish permanent employment relationships.
In order to achieve the goal of simply making quick, incidental earnings, one should be guided by the assumption that the lower the taxes and social security advances, the better for the person taking up employment. Therefore, it is also important that only a contractor (and not an employee) who is under 26 years of age and has the status of a student can be registered for health insurance as a family member – so he does not have to pay health insurance contributions or social security contributions on the earnings on the mandate. It is also exempt from income tax. In practice, this means that his net (“clean”) remuneration on the assignment is the same as the gross remuneration.
In conclusion, it is always worth setting our priorities and goals. If our primary goal is to gain experience and develop professional skills, the form of employment matters. On the other hand, in order to earn incidental student income, a contract of mandate will be purely economically beneficial.
Oliwia Szopa, lawyer and trainee attorney-at-law at LeasingTeam Group
Doświadczony analityk rynku pracy, specjalizuje się w badaniach nad trendami zatrudnienia i zmianami w strukturze zawodowej. Jego artykuły, publikowane w renomowanych czasopismach branżowych, pomagają czytelnikom zrozumieć dynamikę rynku pracy.
