Human Resource Blog

on-call employee

I have a student who has an issue with her job. She worked at a fast-food restaurant, and was working 20-30 hours a week. She was told that she is now only going to be an on-call employee and not given any hours unless they need her. During the past 4 weeks, the company has not called her for a shift. She wants to file for unemployment, which I think she should, but I was curious if what her job is doing is even legal? How long without getting hours at a job should you consider yourself terminated?

Yes, an employer can cut any workers hours at any time, even to zero hours per week. This is a layoff. It may be a temporary layoff or a permanent one — there is really no way to know. The employee should qualify for unemployment benefits.

If the employer is taking this action due to the employees race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, etc. that may be illegal discrimination. Or, if they are retaliating against her due to a complaint of discrimination or a because she has made a complaint about illegal conduct by the employer, that would be unlawful. But in most other cases, the employer can take this action against an employee.

We will note that if the employer is giving other workers the same hours, they probably took this step because your student has a performance problem.

The employee probably should have considered herself terminated the first week that she had no hours, and should spend her time looking for a new job.