Legal Principle on Labor Law: Regular Employees - Project Employees - Seasonal Employees - Universal Robina Sugar Milling Corporation vs. Ferdinand Acibo, G.R. No. 186439, J. Brion

 Regular Employees - Regular employment refers to that arrangement whereby the employee “has been engaged to perform activities which are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer[.]” Under the definition, the primary standard that determines regular employment is the reasonable connection between the particular activity performed by the employee and the usual business or trade of the employer; the emphasis is on the necessity or desirability of the employee’s activity. Thus, when the employee performs activities considered necessary and desirable to the overall business scheme of the employer, the law regards the employee as regular. By way of an exception, paragraph 2, Article 280 of the Labor Code also considers regular a casual employment arrangement when the casual employee’s engagement has lasted for at least one year, regardless of the engagement’s continuity. The controlling test in this arrangement is the length of time during which the employee is engaged.

Project Employees - A project employment, on the other hand, contemplates on arrangement whereby “the employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking whose completion or termination has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee[.]” Two requirements, therefore, clearly need to be satisfied to remove the engagement from the presumption of regularity of employment, namely: (1) designation of a specific project or undertaking for which the employee is hired; and (2) clear determination of the completion or termination of the project at the time of the employee’s engagement. The services of the project employees are legally and automatically terminated upon the end or completion of the project as the employee’s services are coterminous with the project.

Seasonal Employees - Seasonal employment operates much in the same way as project employment, albeit it involves work or service that is seasonal in nature or lasting for the duration of the season. As with project employment, although the seasonal employment arrangement involves work that is seasonal or periodic in nature, the employment itself is not automatically considered seasonal so as to prevent the employee from attaining regular status. To exclude the asserted “seasonal” employee from those classified as regular employees, the employer must show that: (1) the employee must be performing work or services that are seasonal in nature; and (2) he had been employed for the duration of the season. Hence, when the “seasonal” workers are continuously and repeatedly hired to perform the same tasks or activities for several seasons or even after the cessation of the season, this length of time may likewise serve as a badge of regular employment. In fact, even though denominated as “seasonal workers,” if these workers are called to work from time to time and are only temporarily laid off during the off-season, the law does not consider them separated from the service during the off-season period. The law simply considers these seasonal workers on leave until re-employed.

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