Governing Concept
Seasonal employment exists when the work or service to be performed is seasonal in nature and the engagement is for the duration of the season. The controlling fact is not the label used by the employer, but the nature of the work, the regular cycle of the business, and the actual duration for which the employee is hired.
The Labor Code recognizes that some work is not needed throughout the year. In such work, the end of the season may validly end the employee's active service for that period, but it does not automatically defeat security of tenure when the employee has become a regular seasonal employee.
Seasonal employment therefore has two levels of analysis: first, whether the work is genuinely seasonal; and second, whether the employee's repeated or lengthened service has created regular status with respect to that seasonal activity.
Requisites
For an engagement to be properly treated as seasonal, the following must concur:
- The work must be seasonal in nature. The service must depend on a season, cycle, harvest, production period, tourist period, school period, or other recurring interval during which the work is actually available.
- The employment must be limited to the season. The duration must be tied to the objectively determinable period when the seasonal work exists, not to an arbitrary date chosen to avoid regularization.
- The employee must be engaged for that seasonal work. A worker assigned to continuing, year-round, or ordinary business operations is not seasonal merely because the employer experiences fluctuations in demand.
- The arrangement must not be a device to defeat security of tenure. Repeated short contracts for the same necessary work may reveal regular seasonal employment rather than a series of independent temporary engagements.
Seasonality is established by the nature of the business and the actual work performed. It may be present in agriculture, sugar milling, fisheries, canning, tourism, school-based activities, and similar operations whose labor requirements rise and fall according to recurring periods. It is absent where the work continues throughout the year, even if the employer calls the employees "seasonal" in contracts, payrolls, or notices.
Regular Seasonal Employees
A seasonal employee may become a regular seasonal employee. Regularity attaches when the employee is repeatedly hired from season to season to perform work necessary or desirable to the employer's usual business, or when the employee has rendered at least one year of service, whether continuous or broken, with respect to the activity for which he is employed.
Regular seasonal status means that the employee is regular in relation to the seasonal activity, not that he must be given work and wages for periods when the seasonal activity does not exist. The employment relationship subsists during the off-season, but the employee's actual work and compensation are generally suspended under the principle of no work, no pay, unless a law, contract, collective bargaining agreement, or established company practice provides otherwise.
The usual effect is a right of recall or re-engagement when the next season begins and work is available. The employer may not refuse to take back a regular seasonal employee while hiring others for the same seasonal work, unless there is a valid cause and due process has been observed.
Repeated hiring is strong evidence of regular seasonal employment because it shows that the employee's services are regularly needed whenever the season recurs. The interruptions between seasons do not by themselves make the employment casual, temporary, or new every year.
End of Season
The end of the season may end the employee's active work for that period. For a purely seasonal engagement that has not ripened into regular seasonal employment, the completion of the season may terminate the contract according to its nature.
For a regular seasonal employee, however, the end of the season is not a dismissal. The employee is considered on seasonal layoff or off-season status and remains entitled to return when the same seasonal activity resumes, subject to legitimate business needs and lawful employment actions.
Because the relationship is not severed, the employer cannot use the off-season to remove the employee from the workforce without cause. Non-inclusion in the roster, refusal to recall, replacement by new workers, or a notice that the employee will no longer be engaged may constitute dismissal if the seasonal work still exists.
Distinctions
| Kind of Employment | Controlling Feature | Effect on Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Seasonal | Work exists only during a recurring season or cycle. | Active work ends with the season; repeated service may create regular seasonal status. |
| Project | Work is for a specific project or undertaking whose completion is determined at engagement. | Employment ends upon project completion if the project arrangement is genuine. |
| Fixed-term | Employment is for a knowingly and voluntarily agreed definite period. | The period may be respected if it is not used to evade security of tenure. |
| Casual | Work is not usually necessary or desirable to the employer's usual business and is not project or seasonal. | Service of at least one year, continuous or broken, gives regular status with respect to the activity performed. |
| Probationary | The employee is tested against reasonable standards made known at engagement. | Probation cannot be renewed every season to avoid regular seasonal status after the employee has qualified or been repeatedly retained. |
Tests and Indicators
The proper classification depends on the totality of circumstances. The most important indicators are the nature of the employer's business, the recurring availability of the work, the employee's actual tasks, the length and frequency of engagement, and the employer's practice in recalling the same workers.
Indicators of genuine seasonal employment include a clearly identifiable production or service season, work that ceases when the season ends, contracts or notices tied to the season rather than an artificial date, and objective business records showing that the need for labor recurs only during specific periods.
Indicators of regular seasonal employment include repeated rehiring for the same tasks, inclusion in a seasonal workforce or recall list, performance of work necessary or desirable to the usual business, service over several seasons, and reliance by the employer on the same workers whenever the seasonal operation resumes.
Indicators against seasonality include year-round assignment, transfer to non-seasonal tasks after the supposed season, continuous need for the position, immediate replacement after the season, and use of successive short contracts despite the permanent character of the work.
Rights During the Season
Seasonal employees are employees during the period of engagement. They are entitled to applicable labor standards while they actually work, including minimum wage, overtime pay, premium pay, holiday pay when the conditions for entitlement are present, service incentive leave when legally earned, and social legislation coverage when the statutory requisites are met.
Seasonal status does not reduce the employer's duty to keep employment records, pay lawful wages, observe occupational safety and health requirements, remit required contributions, and comply with lawful wage orders and applicable benefits. The temporary or recurring nature of the work affects the period of work, not the existence of employee rights during that period.
Thirteenth month pay, when due, is generally computed on the basic salary actually earned during the calendar year. A seasonal worker is not deprived of proportionate benefits merely because his service was not rendered for the entire year.
Termination, Recall, and Due Process
During the season, a seasonal employee may be dismissed only for a just or authorized cause and with the required procedural due process. The seasonal nature of the employment is not a separate ground for dismissal while the seasonal work remains available.
At the close of the season, the employer may stop giving work because the seasonal activity has ended. The lawful end of active service must be distinguished from dismissal, because dismissal involves severance of the employment relationship or refusal to continue the employee despite the existence of available seasonal work.
For a regular seasonal employee, failure to recall at the start of the next season may amount to illegal dismissal when the employer hires others to perform the same work and cannot show a valid cause for excluding the employee. The employer bears the burden of proving the legality of dismissal once the employee shows employment and the fact of non-recall or termination.
Abandonment is not inferred from the employee's absence during the off-season. The off-season is a period when no work is expected, so abandonment requires clear proof of intent to sever the relationship and an overt act inconsistent with continued employment.
If dismissal is illegal, the remedy must account for the seasonal character of the work. Reinstatement ordinarily means restoration to the seasonal position or recall list, and monetary awards are measured with reference to periods when work and wages would have been available, subject to the governing rules on full relief for illegal dismissal.
Misclassification
When an employer misclassifies regular or regular seasonal workers as casual, temporary, contractual, or repeatedly probationary employees, the law treats the employees according to the true nature of their work. Contractual stipulations cannot prevail over facts showing that the employees perform necessary seasonal work on a recurring basis.
Misclassification may result in recognition of regular seasonal status, reinstatement or recall, payment of backwages or wage differentials, unpaid statutory benefits, and other reliefs appropriate to the violation. The decisive inquiry remains whether the employer's need for the employee's work regularly recurs as part of its business and whether the employee has acquired security of tenure in relation to that recurring work.
Operational Rules
- The season, not the employer's label, determines whether employment is seasonal.
- The end of a genuine season ends active work, but not necessarily the employment relationship.
- Repeated rehiring for necessary seasonal work creates regular seasonal status.
- Regular seasonal employees have security of tenure with respect to the recurring seasonal activity.
- No wages are generally due during the off-season because no work is performed, unless a separate source grants compensation.
- Non-recall when seasonal work resumes may be dismissal if the employee has regular seasonal status.
- Labor standards apply during actual periods of seasonal work.
- Successive seasonal contracts are valid only when they reflect genuine seasonality and are not used to defeat regular status.