As Christmas looms and the festive season brings a welcome increase in business and sales, many employers will be considering hiring temporary and/or part-time staff. How can employers legally approach this?

Temporary staff or casual workers are those who are in employment for less than 13 weeks and who are not in regular or seasonal employment with the same employer. Therefore, if you are hiring staff for the first time to cover the busy period, this class of employee may best meet your requirement.

 A casual worker must receive a pay-slip each week and, once in employment for 60 days, an employment contract setting out mandated terms and conditions such as rate of pay, hours of work, overtime rate applicable, job description and so on.

 Casual workers over the age of 18 must be paid the national minimum wage rate of €8.65 – for under-18s the rate is €6.06. It is important to note that casual workers do accrue holiday entitlement at the rate of 8% of hours worked.

 Part-time employees, on the other hand, are hired employees with more than 13 weeks' service. Their wage and holiday entitlements are identical to those of casual employees.

 Part-time employees are also afforded statutory protection and may not be treated in a less favourable manner than a comparable full-time employee.

 However, there are exceptions on what are termed "objective grounds". An objective ground is one which is required to achieve a legitimate objective of the employer.

Part-time employees can be treated differently for the purposes of pension entitlement. When dealing with a claim for less favourable treatment, legal tests apply; essentially a part-time employee and a full-time employee must be given similar conditions to the extent that they perform the same work, or that there is minimal difference in the work performed by both.

Employers should always take legal advice on any assessment of comparable employees and the application of less favourable treatment.

Oisín Scollard is a Barrister and Director of hr company Employment Clinic

www.employmentclinic.ie