New employment law legislation (Amsterdam)

As of 1 August 2022, the Transparent and Predictable Employment Conditions Act will enter into force (without transitional arrangements so that the provisions are immediately applicable). We would like to briefly draw your attention to the most important changes:

extension of the employer's information obligation;
limitation of the ban on ancillary activities;
training costs are for the employer if the training is necessary for the position and the training must as far as possible be carried out during working hours;
distinction between employment contracts with a predictable or unpredictable work pattern (with additional obligations for both forms);
the employee can request for a form of employment with more predictable and secure working conditions.

Updating employment contracts

The above makes it necessary to update agency, secondment, employment and payroll agreements, mainly because the NEN, ABU and/or NBBU will also check whether the more extensive information obligation has been met.

If you are already using a(n) (temporary) employment agreement based on our model, we can update it for only € 250,- ex VAT. If you do not use our model, please contact us so we can discuss the various possibilities.

Below is a brief explanation of the changes.

Extension of the obligation to provide information

The employer will have a more extensive information obligation. For example, the employment contract must include: the various leave entitlements, the procedure relating to termination of the employment contract, the salary, including the separate components. It is also important that the employment contract states whether the work pattern is predictable (if so, also state the duration of the working time and the overtime rules) or largely unpredictable (this will be discussed further in the next section).

Unpredictable work pattern

There will be more protection for employees whose working hours are wholly or largely unpredictable. In that case, reference days and hours must be agreed with the employee. The employee can then only be obliged to work on those reference days and hours. The call and cancellation periods as they are known for call agreements also apply to employment contracts with a completely or largely unpredictable work pattern, as does the right to continued payment of wages in the event that the call is not changed/withdrawn in time. Finally, it is compulsory to inform the employee in the employment contract about the above (term of call and cancellation and right to salary in case of untimely change/withdrawal of call).

If you make use of employment contracts with an unpredictable work pattern, it is important to decide whether this is still attractive, given the additional obligations. Should this be the case, then it is important to adjust the employment contracts.

Request for more predictable and secure employment conditions

An employee can request the employer for a form of employment with more predictable and secure terms of employment, if the employee has been employed for at least 26 weeks. The employer must give reasons for its decision within one month (if an employer has fewer than 10 employees, the period is three months). If the employer fails to do so, the form of employment shall be adjusted in accordance with the employee's request.

Prohibition of ancillary activities

An ancillary work clause is, in principle, no longer permitted unless it can be justified on objective grounds (e.g. health and/or safety reasons or that the Working Hours Act would otherwise be in jeopardy). The objective reason does not have to be included in the clause itself, but may also be provided the moment an employee starts performing secondary activities.

Study costs clauses

Compulsory training must be offered to employees free of charge, whereby the time involved is regarded as working time and takes place as much as possible during the times when work is normally performed. Necessary training is interpreted quite broadly, so that education cost clauses in their current form will no longer be permitted for a lot of different trainings.

We therefore advise you to take stock of whether there are any study-costs clauses of which an employee could invoke invalidity, and to adapt the study contracts to the new situation as much as possible. We will, of course, be happy to assist you in this regard, so please do not hesitate to contact us.

New employment law legislation