Legal grounds for and the maximum duration of temporary employment?

I work as project coordinator with a fixed-term contract. My employer renews my employment contract once every six months, saying that it is impossible to assess the need for customer service or the amount of work beyond that period. The employer has also let me know that they might not renew my contract and hire someone else to manage routine business at the workplace. What are the legal grounds for and the maximum duration of temporary employment? Does my employer have the right to replace me?

The fixed-term nature of an employment relationship must always be well justified, or based on the employee’s initiative. If there is no unambiguous agreement on the matter, the employment contract shall be deemed to be indefinite. In practice, fixed-term contracts are often justified by the nature of the work. For example, the work can be organised into projects or programs with clear start and end times and separate funding, which sets them apart from the routine operations of the organisation. Seasonal work refers to work that takes place in a specific season, for example, in summer or the period leading up to Christmas.

Working as a substitute is a clear, acceptable reason for fixed-term employment. For example, an employee may be hired as a substitute of a permanent employee who is temporarily transferred to work as a substitute of another employee who is on family leave within the same organisation.

Grounds for fixed-term employment contracts that are harder to interpret include the unstable nature of the operations or duties and organisational renewals. In some of these cases, there might be justified reasons for making fixed-term employment contracts for a few months. The reasons must be attributable to the nature of the work or the employer’s actions, employment contracts may not be made for a fixed term for the purpose of avoiding the provisions on the termination of employment.

The lawfulness of repeated, consecutive fixed-term employment relationships is evaluated on the basis of the justified reason referred to in the Employment Contracts Act. The reason may change between the individual employment contracts, but each new fixed-term contract must be justified specifically. If the need for workforce can be considered permanent, there is no justified reason for making consecutive employment contracts for a fixed term.

You have entered into an employment contract for a fixed term, but the employer must specify the work-related reasons for the fixed-term nature of each employment relationship. After this, the lawfulness of the reasons for the fixed-term nature of the employment relationship must be assessed case by case, determining whether the employer is using temporary employees to manage their normal operations on unjustified grounds. In the latter case, your employment relationship shall be considered to be valid indefinitely, and the failure to continue it shall be deemed unlawful termination of employment.

An individual employer may hire the person of their choosing, as far as the recruitment does not include discrimination prohibited under the Act on Equality between Women and Men or the Non-Discrimination Act. If the fixed-term nature of your employment contract was lawfully justified and the contract expires, your employer may hire a new temporary employee to manage the tasks, provided that there is a justified reason for the fixed-term nature of the employment and that the non-renewal of your contract was not based on discriminative grounds, such as disease or pregnancy.