Intermittent work contracts in Portugal: rules and pay

You work from March to October, stop for the winter, and the company keeps paying you part of your wage in the idle months? That arrangement has a name: the intermittent work contract (Arts. 157 to 160 of the Portuguese Labour Code, known in Portuguese as "trabalho intermitente"). It is a permanent contract with alternating work and inactivity periods, a minimum of 5 months of work per year and an allowance of at least 20% of base pay for the months you spend at home.

What intermittent work is (and what it is not)

Joao is an entertainer at an Algarve hotel, on a base pay of 1,000 euros. The hotel is full from March to October and nearly closes in winter. Instead of fixed-term contracts that end every October, the hotel and Joao signed an intermittent work contract: Joao works 8 months a year full time and stays home from November to February. In the idle months he receives 200 euros (20% of base pay) and the contract stays alive, seniority included. This is exactly what the scheme exists for: companies whose activity is discontinuous or varies in intensity across the year (Art. 157 no. 1).

What intermittent work is not:

• It is not part-time work. In part-time work you work fewer hours, but every week. In intermittent work you work full time in some periods and stop in others.
• It is not seasonal fixed-term hiring. A fixed-term contract ends on a date or with a task. The intermittent contract does not end: it hibernates and comes back, year after year.
• It is not temporary agency work. In temporary agency work there are three parties (you, the agency and the user company). Here there are only two, and the law forbids mixing the two schemes (Art. 157 no. 2).

The contract: in writing, with the yearly hours up front

An intermittent work contract is subject to written form and must contain the identification, signatures and address of the parties, plus the indication of the yearly number of hours of work or the yearly number of full-time days (Art. 158 no. 1).

The consequence of getting this wrong is one of the strongest in the Code: without the written form, or without the yearly number of hours or days, the contract counts as concluded with no inactivity period (no. 2). In plain terms: you become an ordinary continuous worker, entitled to full salary every month of the year, and the company loses the right to send you home. To handshake deals "for the season" with no signed paper, the law answers with the regime that protects the worker most.

And if the contract states a number of hours that is too low? It does not stand either: the contract counts as concluded for the minimum set in Art. 159 no. 2 (Art. 158 no. 3), which is next.

The minimum: 5 months of work per year, 3 in a row

The work, whether consecutive or split into blocks, cannot amount to less than 5 full-time months per year, and at least 3 of those months must be consecutive (Art. 159 no. 2).

Sara signed an intermittent contract with an events company providing for 3 months of work per year, spread over weekends. That number sits below the legal minimum, so it does not stand: Sara's contract counts as concluded for 5 full-time months (Arts. 158 no. 3 and 159 no. 2), and it is for those 5 months of work, plus the compensation for the rest, that the company is on the hook.

Within these boundaries, the calendar design is free: the parties can fix in the contract the start and end of each work period (for example, "from 1 March to 31 October"), or leave the dates open and set only the notice with which the company must call you in (Art. 159 no. 1).

Being called in: 20 or 30 days notice

When the dates are not fixed in the contract, the company calls you in, but not at whim. The minimum notice is 20 days. It rises to 30 days if you are in the situation of Art. 160 no. 1, that is, if you carry on another activity during the inactivity period (Art. 159 no. 3): the law gives you extra time to wind down the other job.

Sara, by then working at a cafe during her inactivity period, got a message from the events company on a Thursday: "you start Monday". The law's answer is clear: notice below the minimum does not bind you. You may simply not show up, and the company cannot penalise you for it (Art. 159 no. 4). Breaching the minimum notice is also a serious administrative offence (no. 5), fined by ACT, the Portuguese labour inspectorate.

Keep the three pieces straight: with dates in the contract, you always know when you start; without them, you count on 20 days; with another job on the side, you count on 30.

The idle months: 20% of base pay, and everything else that stays

During the inactivity period you are entitled to a retributive compensation (a monthly allowance for the idle months), paid at the same intervals as your salary: if you were paid monthly, you keep being paid monthly. The amount is whatever the applicable collective agreement sets or, failing that, 20% of your base pay (Art. 160 no. 2). In Joao's case: 20% of 1,000 euros = 200 euros per month, November through February. Not paying it is a serious administrative offence (no. 6).

You can work elsewhere in the idle months. The law says so expressly: during inactivity you may carry on another activity, as long as you inform your employer (no. 1). Whatever you earn is deducted from the compensation (no. 3). Pedro, Joao's colleague, gets 200 euros of compensation and earns 650 euros at a cafe over the winter: the deduction wipes out the compensation and the hotel pays him nothing in those months. [Common interpretation: the deduction stops at zero. If you earn more than the compensation, you lose the compensation, but you never have to hand over the difference.]

Allowances follow the average. The holiday allowance and the Christmas allowance are calculated on the average of the salaries and retributive compensations of the last 12 months, or of the contract period if shorter (no. 4). For Joao: (8 x 1,000 + 4 x 200) / 12 = 8,800 / 12 = 733.33 euros per allowance. Calculating the allowances only on the 20% of the idle months is a serious administrative offence (no. 6).

And the rest does not vanish. During inactivity, all rights, duties and guarantees that do not presuppose actual work remain in force (no. 5): seniority keeps running, the duty of loyalty holds on both sides, the contract is alive. For that very reason, idle is not unemployed: with the contract in force there is no unemployment benefit; what exists is the retributive compensation. If the contract ends, then the normal rules of unemployment benefit apply.

Six situations and what the law says

How to react if the company does not comply

1. Go to the paper. Check whether the contract is in writing and states the yearly number of hours or days. If either fails, the law treats you as a continuous worker, and full salary for every month becomes claimable.
2. Do the maths. Add up the months of work in the year (minimum 5), check the 20% in the idle months and redo the allowance average with your payslips in front of you.
3. Write to the company. Ask for the correction by email, quoting the amounts and the articles: labour credits can be claimed up to one year after the contract ends, as the guide on final pay at the end of a contract explains.
4. Complain to ACT. Unpaid compensation, miscalculated allowances or shortened notice are serious administrative offences: see how to file a complaint with ACT.

For companies: using intermittent work without risks

If your activity is seasonal or varies in intensity, intermittent work is the stable alternative to chains of fixed-term contracts, but it demands rigour in the set-up. Confirm the framing first: the scheme only fits activity that is discontinuous or of variable intensity, and never sits on a fixed-term contract or temporary agency work (Art. 157). Put the contract in writing with the yearly number of hours or days: without that clause, the contract stands as continuous and the wage bill becomes a 12 month one. Budget the full year: at least 5 months of fully paid work, compensation of 20% (or the collective agreement figure) for the rest, and allowances on the average. Plan call-ins with 20 or 30 days notice, in writing and with proof of the date, since short notice does not bind the worker and costs a serious administrative offence. And pay the compensation at the same intervals as the salary: failing there is the kind of breach ACT spots with a simple stack of payslips. For drafting clauses in sectors with their own collective agreement, checking with a lawyer is the prudent recommendation.

General information, not legal advice. Always confirm amounts and deadlines with the official sources.