Employment contract and trial period

Collective agreements are made by an employer organisation and a trade union. They define the minimum terms and conditions of employment for an industry, concerning such as aspects as pay and working time.

An employment contract is an agreement made by an employer and an employee, specifying the individual employee’s pay and other employment conditions. All employment contracts in an industry must guarantee at least the minimum terms and conditions specified in the collective agreement for that industry.

You may agree a trial period with your employer when you begin working. This trial period may not be longer than six months, and it may not be longer than half of the agreed employment period in a temporary job. The employer can prolong a trial period if the employee has been incapacitated or on family leave for 30 calendar days or more during the trial period.

The trial period must be explicitly agreed in the employment contract, even when the collective agreement provides for trial periods. Your employer must also inform you that there is a trial period when making the employment contract.

Both the employer and the employee may terminate the employment contract with immediate effect during a trial period, but not on grounds that are improper or discriminatory, such as a brief period of illness or because the employee is pregnant. There is no period of notice when an employment contract is terminated in this way during a trial period.

If a client enterprise hires an agency worker directly after a period of agency work performing the same or similar duties for that enterprise, then this period must be deducted from the maximum length of any trial period.