THERE are various types of employment under the law. The most common type is the regular employment. By law, "an employment shall be deemed to be regular where the employee has been engaged to perform activities that are usually necessary or desirable in the usual business or trade of the employer, except where the employment has been fixed for a specific project or undertaking the completion or termination of which has been determined at the time of the engagement of the employee or where the work or service to be performed is seasonal in nature and the employment is for the duration of the season." (Article 280, Labor Code)
An employment shall be deemed to be casual if it is not covered by the preceding paragraph, provided that any employee who has rendered at least one year of service, whether such service is continuous or broken, shall be considered a regular employee with respect to the activity in which he is employed and his employment shall continue while such activity exists. (Id.)
Thus, according to the Supreme Court, and based on the above, there is casual employment where an employee is engaged to perform a job, work, or service which is merely incidental to the business of the employer, and such job, work or service is for a definite period made known to the employee at the time of engagement. (Conti v. NLRC, G.R. 119253, April 10, 1997).
In other words then, casual employment exists when the position occupied by the employee is not usually necessary or desirable in the usual trade or business of the employer.
What is meant though, by "usually necessary or desirable?" If it is a necessary and desirable position, it refers to a position that is needed, and without which an employer would not be able to operate his business. One example would be a cook in a restaurant. Obviously, a cook is usually necessary or desirable when one operates a restaurant. One cannot serve food, much less cook anything, if there is no cook.
Another example, according to a textbook writer (Atty. Villanueva), is a software development firm. A programmer in such a firm would be considered necessary and desirable because without the programmer, there would be no software for the firm to sell.
However, if one were a data encoder in a software development firm, then that position is not necessary or desirable because the company can operate or sell software even without a data encoder.
Thus, an example of causal employment, according to Atty. Elvin Villanueva in his book, "Forms, Notices and Contracts Made Easy," is as follows: " An example of casual employment is a data scanner of documents in a bottling company that wants to setup an electronic filing system. After all the papers have been scanned, there is no need for the document scanner to stay. His position is not necessary and desirable anyway." (p. 77)
One must note though that if a casual employee has worked for more than a one (1) year period, whether continuous or broken, then he would be considered a regular employee.
In short then, a casual employee is an employee who is not, strictly speaking, needed or desired for the business, and his work is only incidental to the operations of the business.
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The opinions expressed herein are solely of Atty. Lee. This column does not constitute legal advice nor does it create a lawyer-client relationship with any party. You can reach Kelvin through his office at tcplawfirm.staff@gmail.com.