Part-time employees are employees who work less hours in comparison to full-time employees. Accordingly, an employee who works mornings only while the rest of the employer’s workforce work 8 hours per day, would be a part-time employee. In order to identify a comparable full-time employee, regard must be had to a full-time employee employed by the employer on the same type of employment relationship who performs the same or similar work in the same workplace as the part-time employee

Part-time employees must be treated on the whole not less favourably than a comparable full-time employee doing the same or similar work, unless there is a justifiable reason for different treatment. Such a justifiable reason could be seniority, experience, quality or quantity of work or any other non-discriminatory reason. Part-time employees must also be given access to training and skills development that is on the whole not less favourable than the access applicable to a comparable full-time employee. Employers must also provide their part-time employees with the same access to opportunities to apply for vacancies as it provides to full-time employees.

The protection contained in this section does not apply to:

• employees earning above the prescribed earnings threshold;
• small employers and start-ups;
• an employee who ordinarily works less than 24 months for an employer; and
• during the part-time employee’s first three months of continuous employment with the employer.

1 January 2015 saw the introduction of stricter regulation of a-typical forms of employment with the  Labour Relations Act (LRA) amended to include a number of provisions specifically aimed at giving labour broking employees, employees employed on fixed term contracts, and part-time employees greater protection. Except for the amendment to s186(1)(b) of the LRA, which applies to all employees irrespective of their level of remuneration, the amendments only apply to employees on a-typical work arrangements who earn below the prescribed earnings threshold. This threshold is currently R205,433.30 per annum, but it is anticipated that it will increase with effect from 1 July 2015. Small employers, that is those with less than 10 employees, are exempt, and so are start-ups with less than 50 employees (that is, businesses in operation for less than 2 years – but not if the employer conducts more than 1 business or where the business was formed by the division or dissolution of an existing business).

Written by Talita Laubscher/Helen Wilsenach, Bowman Gilfillan Africa Group