Currently, an expert with several years of experience in running his own business after passing a full -time job is treated as a beginner employee, both in the budgets and the private sector. As we have already informed in Business Insider, as a result, she would not have the right to 26 days of vacation (and only up to 20 days), she would have trouble, e.g. at a bank with a loan (zero work internship), and in the budget he would not have the right to an internship allowance (the internship would also be zero). Later, in the event of termination of the employment contract, the employee would lose on the notice period (it may be shorter) and the amount of severance pay (may be lower).
These negative effects related to the counting of seniority are to be eliminated by the project prepared by the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy, which we were informed about in March 2024. Currently, the project is PO and reading in the Sejm (print No. 1426).
However, according to Izabela Leśniewska, a tax advisor at ALO-2, some people were forgotten in the project.
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What will be included in the work experience
The project provides that various forms of professional activity will include the seniority, including: conducting business activity, cooperation with a business person, periods of suspension of the company due to childcare, performing contracts or agency contracts, as well as periods of gainful work abroad.
In a word, work “on your own” is to be included in the seniority. As Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, the family minister wrote on the portal X, thanks to these changes “longer holidays, internships or jubilee awards will become more accessible to even 2 million working”.
The changes are to enter into force on January 1, 2026, but the ministry points out that the regulations will also work back. Employees will have 24 months to submit to their employer the necessary documents confirming previous periods of employment.
Only that some people were forgotten in this revolution.
Whoever misses the revolution in counting the seniority
As Izabela Leśniewska explains, the project assumes that the seniority (employment period according to the Labor Code) will include the period of suspension of business activity if the entrepreneur has suspended the company to exercise personal care of the child. For this period, he has also paid contributions for pension and disability pension insurance by ZUS. – It is surprising that This solution is not intended for people cooperating with the entrepreneur – says Izabela Leśniewska. The expert explains that cooperating persons, exercising personal care of the child, also have pension and disability insurance contributions. The obligation to pay contributions for them is on ZUS. – The period of childcare by cooperating people should also be included in their work experience – believes Izabela Leśniewska.
The expert also points out that The project also omitted people who had graduated practices. – It is also surprising – comments Leśniewska.
According to the project, the period of employment (seniority) includes, among others The period of performance of the mandate contract, agency contract, the period of being a cooperating person, a member of the Agricultural Production Cooperative, a member of the Agricultural Circle Cooperative. – It is difficult to understand why the designers omitted the acquisition of experience and practical skills by a graduate based on graduate practices – says Izabela Leśniewska.
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Is it only about compulsory or voluntary insurance?
There is another drawback in the project. It's about imprecise entries. According to the project, the seniority will include periods in which the person was subject to retirement and disability pension insurance. – The problem is that it was not determined whether it is about compulsory or also voluntary insurance. The justification for the project shows that the project designers were also about voluntary insurance. In my opinion, however, it is worth clarifying in the Sejm that it is about people subject to retirement and disability pension insurance, both obligatory and voluntarily – believes Izabela Leśniewska.
