Employer knowledge: Compliance with the average weekly working hours within a rolling calculation period is now mandatory for the labor inspectorate
LBG Austria - Summary: Since the most recent reform of working hours (“upper limit - 12-hour day”), employees may be employed for up to 12 hours per day and up to 60 hours per week - subject to differing regulations in collective agreements, company agreements or individual contractual regulations. However, this does not apply without restriction; the increased amount of working hours should not be the rule, but the exception. The control instrument for this is the so-called calculation period, which must be recorded by the employer and within which the labor inspectorate checks compliance with the average weekly working time. The Working Time Act (AZG) stipulates that the average weekly working time may not exceed 48 hours over a period of 17 weeks. Collective contractual provisions can extend the calculation period to 26 weeks, and for technical or organizational reasons up to 52 weeks.
The question of whether the calculation period should be set in fixed (predetermined) or rolling weekly sections was controversial and therefore subject to legal uncertainty. The Federal Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection (BMASGK) has now issued a decree instructing all labor inspectorates to calculate the average weekly working hours in accordance with Article 9 (4) of the Working Time Act with immediate effect binding on a rolling basis.
LBG recommendation: Employer obligations relating to the recording of working hours are extremely complex and sensitive and required in a wide range of official inspections. Working time records serve on the one hand to check compliance with the strict requirements of working time law, on the other hand they are an essential basic accounting record that must be observed in the monthly payroll accounting - and therefore must be available anytime. With regard to the calculation period, we recommend employers to quickly review their own calculation practice and - if not yet done - to switch to the rolling variant as soon as possible when calculating the average weekly working time.
At the same time, we recommend a critical review of whether the current working time records are kept in compliance with the law, for example with regard to offsetting overtime, working hours, vacation consumption, etc. Our Austria-wide experts in the field of "personnel accounting, wage tax, social security, labor law" are available for you to advise, evaluate and set up legally compliant documentation in your company.
February 28th, 2020 | Author: Julia Niederleithner | LBG
Contact & Advice: This information naturally shows basic aspects of the topic - for completeness and correctness no guarantee can be given despite careful preparation. LBG will gladly advise you in your individual situation. Please contact one of our 31 Austria-wide locations (www.lbg.at) or welcome@lbg.at - we will gladly bring you together with one of our experts, who is very familiar with your request.
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We advise a wide variety of industries, company sizes and legal forms; in the advisory field "wage tax, social security, labor law, personnel accounting" including a large number of companies between 1 - 50 employees and a number of well-known Austrian and Austrian-based international companies as well as public clients each with several 100 employees, whereby employers with up to 2.000 employees are also among our clients. In total, LBG carries out monthly personnel accounting for around 30.000 employees.