Practical Employer Guidance On Fixed-Term Contracts

Introduction

Many employers utilise fixed-term and specific purpose contracts of employment. The RDJ LLP Employment Team regularly advises our clients on the employment law and HR considerations associated with such contracts. Recently, we have identified an increase in queries on the use of such contracts and we thought it would be useful for us to prepare a Q&A for employers, using the questions we are asked most frequently by our clients, to help employers to navigate this tricky area of employment law.

The Law

The Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act 2003 ("the Act") governs fixed-term and specified purpose contracts of employment (together referred to as "fixed-term contracts"). Section 6 of the Act sets out that fixed-term employees shall not be treated in a less favourable manner in respect of their conditions of employment than comparable permanent employees unless the reasons can be objectively justified.