Temporary to permanent

Q: Do temporary workers qualify for permanent status after a certain period of time?

A: Regulation 8 of the Fixed-term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 states that any employee on a fixed-term contract that has been renewed at least once, or who has been employed on a series of fixed-term contracts, becomes a permanent employee once s/he has four years’ continuous service — unless the employer can show that they would be “justified” on objective grounds in continuing to employ him/her on a fixed-term contract.

However, service before 10 July 2002 does not count towards the four-year total — this was the date when the regulations were supposed to be introduced in order to comply with the relevant European directive, although in fact they did not come into force until 1 October 2002.

Note that the regulations apply to fixed-term employees only, and not to workers.