Project Employees: Specific Project or Undertaking. While the Philippine Labor Code acknowledges project employment, Supreme Court decisions has placed limitations. If certain conditions are met, project employees will be deemed regular employees.

1. Project Employees
Specific Project or Undertaking
29 October 2016

2. Project Employee
Article 294, Labor Code: “… 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…”
Citation: Article 294, Labor Code

3. Limitations to Project Employment
When a project employees may become regulars
A project employee or a member of a work pool may acquire the status
of a regular employee when the following concur:
1) There is a continuous rehiring of project employees even after
cessation of a project; and
2) The tasks performed by the alleged project employee are vital,
necessary and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the
employer.
Citation: Maraguinot, Jr. v. Viva Films, G.R. No. 120969, 22 January 1998

4. Case Law
Maraguinot, Jr. v. Viva Films (1998)
• After 23 projects, the project employee (electrician) filed a complaint for illegal
dismissal against the company after being dismissed.
HELD: The project employee was deemed a regular.
• “… the [project employee] was employed for some three (3) years and worked on at
least twenty-three (23) projects. Moreover, [his] tasks involved, among other chores,
the loading, unloading and arranging of movie equipment in the shooting area as
instructed by the cameramen, returning the equipment to the Viva Films warehouse,
and assisting in the fixing of the lighting system, it may not be gainsaid that these
tasks were vital, necessary and indispensable to the usual business or trade of the
employer. As regards the underscored phrase, it has been held that this is ascertained
by considering the nature of the work performed and its relation to the scheme of the
particular business or trade in its entirety.”
Citation: Maraguinot, Jr. v. Viva Films, G.R. No. 120969, 22 January 1998

5. For more information:
Labor Law Compliance
Best Practices for Human Resource
www.laborlaw.ph
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