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Continuous Employment

Employment law and employee rights

The majority of statutory rights and employees rights are based on rules set against continuous employment. This is not to say a temporary, fixed-term, or part-time employee has fewer rights by law, but in a standard situation an employee does need to have been working for an employer for a set amount of time before qualifying for most paid leave and compensation claims.

It was not until the 6th February 1995 that a new law introduced part-time employment into the category of continuous employment. Since this law was brought forward, part-time permanent employees, regardless of contractual hours, have been entitled to the same rights as full-time permanent staff.

While it is not common knowledge, it is possible for a series of fixed-term contracts to count as a single length of continuous employment, with timescale measured between the start of the first and end of the last period.

This instance can be dependent of the length of gaps between roles, making each case variable and ultimately the decision of an employment tribunal. However, within the gaps between working periods, the employee and employer hold no ‘mutuality of obligation’.

For more information see the Government leaflet "Rules governing continuous employment and a week's pay".