Employment and people
Fixed-term employment agreement
An employment agreement with a finish line in it. The distinctive parts are all about the ending: whether the job stops on a date, on a project finishing, or on somebody returning from leave; whether either side may end it early and on what notice; and what happens if the person is still there afterwards. Many legal systems treat repeated or long-running fixed terms differently from a one-off, so the paper usually records what the term is for.
- In the catalogue
- Employment and people
- Where it can live
- Any of the 184 governing laws
Who uses one
- Employers covering a period of leave, a season, or a funded project.
- Companies hiring for work that genuinely has an end rather than as a trial.
- A person taking a role that is defined by a date or an event.
What you are deciding
- What ends the term: a date, a project, or somebody returning
- Whether either side may end it early, and on what notice
- What is paid if it ends before the date
- Whether it can be renewed, and how
- What happens if the person keeps working after the end date
- Which terms of the job are the same as a permanent one
- Holiday and leave over a shorter period
Blanks you leave stay blank and wait in the room. Nothing is filled in from a guess.
The sections a draft usually has
- 1The parties and the role
- 2The fixed term and what ends it
- 3Duties
- 4Pay and benefits
- 5Early termination
- 6Renewal
- 7Confidentiality and inventions
- 8What happens at the end
- 9Governing law
A general outline, not a required one. What turns up in a draft follows what you described. A contract is written in the order a contract is read.
What people call it
The names this kind of paper goes by. They are here because people search for them. They also filter the catalogue. They are not a wordlist the door matches. At the composer you describe the deal in your own words instead.
- fixed term contract
- fixed term employment agreement
- temporary employment contract
- seasonal contract
- maternity cover contract
- term contract
Questions people ask
- Can a fixed-term contract be ended early?
- Only if it says so, or if local law allows it. Papers of this kind commonly include an early-termination clause with notice, because without one the term is meant to run to its end.
- What happens if the person keeps working past the end date?
- Many legal systems treat continued work as continued employment, sometimes on different terms. Agreements of this kind often say what is meant to happen so it is not left to inference.
- Do fixed-term employees have the same rights?
- In a number of systems they have comparable rights to permanent staff, with limited exceptions. What applies is set by local employment law rather than by the contract.
General answers about the document. Not advice about your situation. Not written about any one country.
Where it lives
A contract names the legal system it is governed by. That is a separate decision from which paper it is. You pick it at the door, from any of the 184 units in Governing law, including England and Wales, Delaware, California and New York.
You do not start from this page. Describe the deal in one sentence at the door. Read the draft back in plain language, in the order a contract is read.
Start it at the door →Related kinds