Employment contracts can be subdivided on the basis of three criteria:

Furthermore, there are also replacement contracts and employment contracts for part-time work.

SECTION 1. PERIOD FOR WHICH THE EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT IS CONCLUDED

GENERAL

Depending on the period for which the employment contract was concluded a distinction can be made between contracts for a fixed period and employment contracts for an indefinite period.

In the context of an open-ended employment contract no time limit is set. In principle both parties can terminate the agreement subject to the legal provisions.

The essence of a fixed-term employment contract is that the parties lay down the length of the agreement beforehand. The contract automatically ends on the expiry date, i.e. the date or the day specified by the parties at the moment the contract was concluded. In principle, neither the employee nor the employer may unilaterally terminate a fixed-term employment contract before the term has expired.

In implementation of Directive 1999/70/EC fixed-term contract workers may not be treated less favourably than comparable permanent workers.

CONSECUTIVE FIXED-TERM EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS

Employment contract law provides more guarantees in terms of job security to open-ended contracts than to fixed-term contracts. For instance, the provisions with regard to suspension and termination of the contract are, as a rule, more favourable to employees with open-ended contracts. As a result, in the past employers sometimes resorted to a practice which consisted of concluding consecutive fixed-term contracts, instead of concluding one open-ended contract.

The legislator has tried to remedy this shortcoming by adding a provision in this respect to the Employment Contract Act, more specifically, Article 10 Employment Contract Act.

When parties have concluded several consecutive fixed-term employment contracts without there having been an interruption caused by the employee, they are considered to have concluded an open-ended contract; except when the employer proves that these contracts were justified because of the nature of the job or because of another legitimate reason.