Rules for Temporary Assignment of Employees

Good day, 

According to § 58 section 6 of Act No. 311/2001 Coll., the Labour Code (hereinafter referred to as “LC”): “Temporary assignment may be agreed for a maximum of 24 months. The temporary assignment of an employee to the same user employer may be extended or re-agreed within 24 months up to four times; this also applies in the case of temporary assignment of an employee by another employer or another temporary employment agency to the same user employer. A re-agreed temporary assignment is one where the employee is to be temporarily assigned to the same user employer before the expiry of six months following the end of the previous temporary assignment, and in the case of temporary assignment for reasons stated in § 48 section 4 letter b) or c), before the expiry of four months after the end of the previous temporary assignment. The provisions of the first and second sentence do not apply to temporary assignments for reasons stated in § 48 section 4 letter a).”

According to § 48 section 4 letter a) of the LC: “Further extension or re-agreement of a fixed-term employment relationship for up to two years or beyond two years is possible only for the purpose of substituting an employee during maternity leave, paternity leave, parental leave, leave immediately following maternity, paternity or parental leave, temporary incapacity for work, or for an employee who has been long-term released to perform a public or trade union function.”

The first sentence of § 58 section 6 LC implies that a temporary assignment cannot be agreed for a period longer than two years. A repeated assignment to the same user employer may only be agreed within this two-year period.

However, § 48 section 4 letter a) of the LC specifies several reasons under which a temporary assignment can be agreed even for a period longer than 24 months.

According to legal literature (Barancová et al.: Labour Code – Commentary, 3rd edition, 2022, C. H. Beck, pp. 618–656), temporary assignment may be agreed for a maximum of 24 months, while this limit, in accordance with the Labour Code, does not apply to temporary assignments for the purpose of substituting an employee of the user employer during:

a) maternity leave, parental leave, or leave immediately following maternity or parental leave

b) temporary incapacity for work, or

c) long-term release to perform a public or trade union function.

In these cases, temporary assignment may be agreed for a period longer than 24 months. Unlike the regulation of fixed-term employment, when exceeding the maximum duration of a temporary assignment, the Labour Code does not stipulate the obligation to state the reason for the temporary assignment in the agreement. However, to avoid doubt and legal uncertainty, it is advisable in any case that the employee and the temporary employment agency explicitly state the reason for such an exception – i.e., employee substitution – in the agreement on temporary assignment.