2Contracts
2.3 Trial period
Employers can assess a worker’s abilities by agreeing on a trial period during which the employer or the worker can freely terminate the contract without having to allege or prove any cause, without prior notice and with no right to any indemnity in favor of the worker or the employer.
However, the termination by the employer will be null in where terminating the contract of a pregnant employee, from the start date of the pregnancy until the beginning of the suspension for birth, unless there are grounds not related to pregnancy or maternity.
Where a trial period is agreed (provided that the worker has not performed the same functions before at the company under any type of employment contract, in which case the trial period would be null and void), it must be put in writing. Collective labor agreements may establish time limits for trial periods which, as a general rule and in the absence of any provision in the collective labor agreement, cannot exceed:
- Six months for college and junior college graduate specialists.
- Two months for all other employees. At companies with fewer than twenty-five employees, the trial period for employees who are not college or junior college graduate specialists cannot exceed three months.
- One month in the case of temporary fixed-term employment contracts agreed for a time-period of less than six months.
Training contracts and special employment contracts (domestic workers, senior managers, among others) have their own specific trial periods.
