Subject: Operational indications regarding the change in the regulation of causal grounds in the fixed-term contract introduced by the Sostegni-bis Decree
The National Labor Inspectorate on September 14, 2021 released the operating instructions regarding the amendment, introduced by Decree No. 73/2021 converted with amendments into Law No. 106/2021 (so-called Sostegni-bis), of the regulation of causal grounds in the fixed-term contract. Recall that this Decree introduced, with Article 41 bis, an additional reason for the purposes of entering into a fixed-term contract exceeding 12 months, which devolves to the collective bargaining referred to in Article 51 of Legislative Decree No. 81/2015 the possibility of identifying specific needs for the conclusion of a fixed-term contract of more than 12 months (but not exceeding 24 months).
This means that, as of last July 25, national, territorial or company collective agreements stipulated by trade union associations that are comparatively more representative at the national level and company collective agreements stipulated by their company trade union representatives or by the unitary trade union representation, are allowed to identify new cases in the presence of which it is possible to stipulate a fixed-term contract of more than 12 months. The norm requires that the needs be specific and, therefore, identify concrete hypotheses, without therefore using generic formulations (for example: reasons "of a technical, productive, organizational nature") that require further declination within the individual contract.
The change introduced by the Sostegni-bis Decree has repercussions not only for the conclusion of the first contract of more than 12 months but also affects the rules governing the institutions of renewal and extension.
Starting from the consideration that in Article 41 bis of Decree Law 73/2021, a new paragraph "1.1" was inserted into Article 19 of Legislative Decree no. 81/2015, which provides for the possibility of entering into fixed-term contracts of an initial duration of more than 12 months according to the needs identified by collective bargaining, only until September 30, 2022, the Inspectorate pointed out that the time limitation concerns the first fixed-term contract between the parties; it also specified that the deadline of September 30, 2022 should be referred to the formalization of the contract, which may provide for a duration of the relationship that exceeds this date, without prejudice to the overall limit of 24 months.