Calculation of continuous work experience (nuances)

The importance of continuity of service in 2021

Until 2007, when the Russian Federation Law “On compulsory social insurance in case of temporary disability and in connection with maternity” dated December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ came into force, the amount of continuous work experience was important for calculating sick leave payments. The size of the percentage in which the employee was paid the actually accrued sickness benefit depended on this length of service (clause 25 of the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions dated February 23, 1984 No. 191, which has now lost its effect):

at least 8 years - 100%;
from 5 to 8 years - 80%;
less than 5 years - 60%.

Law of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ (Article 7) tied these figures to the insurance period, i.e. to the total duration of those periods during which a person was an insured person and paid insurance contributions to the Social Insurance Fund (Article 16) .

Find out about the rules for calculating the insurance period here.

Thus, continuous work experience has lost its only important purpose, although the Law of the Russian Federation of December 29, 2006 No. 255-FZ contains a clause that if the length of service calculated for the period before 2007 according to the new rules turns out to be less than continuous for the same period, then the insurance period for the purposes of calculating sick leave is considered equal to continuous (Clause 2, Article 17).

The calculation of continuous work experience during the period of its legislative significance was carried out according to the rules approved by Resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers dated April 13, 1973 No. 252. This document is now considered no longer in force, although in reality its text remains in demand, since continuous work experience continues to play a certain role in relationship between employee and employer.

Departmental regulations or local internal documents of the employer may establish a dependence on this length of service for such things as:

additional payments and salary supplements;
one-time rewards for length of service;
right to additional leave.

The following materials will introduce you to the types of work experience:

“Special work experience - what is it?”;
“Total length of service - what is included and how to calculate?”;
“Calculation of medical experience for retirement (nuances).”

The nuances of calculating length of service were explained in detail by ConsultantPlus experts:

Get trial access to the K+ system and go to the HR Guide for free.

Is the length of service retained when applying to the labor exchange after dismissal?

Registration at the Employment Center means assigning a person the status of unemployed. This means that he will receive unemployment benefits.

Thus, there is no reason to maintain the working period. Therefore, the employee receives only the one or two months due to him after losing his job. The exception is cases of termination of the contract at the initiative of the employer.

In this case, the period remains for one month. The calculation of the specified time begins with a mark in the work book.

Reduction or complete liquidation of an enterprise makes it possible to maintain continuity for a period of three months from the date of termination of legal relations with the employer. This is the maximum time allowed by law.

How much work experience is considered continuous?

Due to the fact that continuous work experience has lost the status of a value whose application is stipulated by law, each specific department or employer may have its own idea of it. For example, continuous work experience is associated with the duration of continuous work:

at all;
with one employer;
in one department;
in one specialty;
in the same working conditions;
on the same territory.

Accordingly, the definition of what is considered continuous work experience, the purposes of applying this concept, as well as the procedure for its calculation should be fixed in a departmental or local regulatory act.

Periods

Deadlines taken into account:

service in an army organization, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, if no more than 3 months have passed since it;
service, maternity payments, child care benefits for a military personnel suspended due to the birth of a child, if she enters an institution or study;
employment, paid practice of a student at a university, secondary vocational training in an organization, graduate school, residency;
training in institutions, vocational technical colleges. education, if no more than 3 months have passed since their completion;
advanced training, change of qualifications, prof. training, if they were preceded by employment or service in an army organization, the Ministry of Internal Affairs;
work as the chairman of a collective farm in the direction of specific bodies;
absenteeism of an unfairly expelled and reinstated employee.

Is continuity maintained if you change jobs?

When determining the duration of continuous work experience, most employers continue to apply the rules that are no longer valid, but do not require additional development and are quite understandable, approved by Resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers of April 13, 1973 No. 252.

According to these rules, continuous work experience retains its continuity when changing jobs, if the break in work does not exceed:

1 month for the general case of transition from one job to another (clause 2);
3 weeks (for dismissal in the period from 01.09.1983 to 31.12.2006) when dismissing an employee on his own initiative without a reason recognized as valid (clause 2);
2 months after completion of work in the Far North and in areas equivalent to it, or work abroad (clause 3);
3 months upon dismissal from liquidated, reorganized or downsizing organizations, from downsizing military units, after dismissal due to the inability to continue working in the same place for health reasons or dismissal of primary school teachers due to the reorganization of the education system (clause 4). For persons who quit for health reasons, a break in work during the period from 07/01/1973 to 10/01/1973 does not affect their continuous work experience. If dismissal for health reasons required time to restore working capacity, then the duration of the permissible break in work is counted from the date of this restoration, confirmed by documentation.

How the Far North affects men's pensions, see the link.

Continuous work experience does not depend on the duration of the break in employment for situations of applying for a job after dismissal in connection with (clause 6 of the resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers dated April 13, 1973 No. 252):

transfer of a spouse to work in another area;
retirement due to old age or long service.

The same decree can be used to determine periods:

who do not maintain continuity of service (clause 7);
non-labor, counted towards continuous work experience (clause 8);
not taken into account in the length of service, but not interrupting it (clause 9).

Find out the nuances of accounting for individual time periods in the work experience from the materials:

“Is military service included in the length of service (nuances)?”;
“Is maternity leave included in the length of service (nuances)?”;
“Is study included in the work experience (nuances)?”.

How many days of service is considered continuous when calculating at your own request?

The total duration of the subject's employment relationship significantly affects the amount of various benefits, including payment in connection with temporary disability of a citizen and pension. The insurance period includes all periods when a citizen worked, paid taxes and made insurance contributions to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation. It also includes periods when a person was unable to work due to health reasons, was considered disabled, or received unemployment benefits.

However, for many people, it is the length of service that is considered continuous that remains important. This includes periods of work at one or more enterprises, provided that the person was considered unemployed for no more than 21 days from the date of dismissal until the conclusion of a new employment contract.

Thus, in the event of dismissal on personal initiative without compelling reasons, the person is given 3 weeks to find a job.

If the reason for dismissal is a valid reason, for example, the inability to perform one’s job duties due to health conditions, one is given 30 days to find a new job. But people who worked at enterprises located in the Far North can look for work a little longer, namely 60 days.

If the subject resigned due to admission to a university, assignment of a disability group, transfer of a spouse to another region, pregnancy, need to care for a child or other disabled family member, the length of service will be considered continuous until the reason for leaving the position disappears. After this, the citizen must find a job again within 21 days.

Does continuous service matter for retirement?

For the purposes of assigning and calculating a pension, the length of continuous work experience has never mattered. However, it can play a role in recognizing a person as a labor veteran (which gives him the right to additional social benefits), if, according to the regional regulations on veterans, such length of service is a condition for obtaining this title.

Regions have the right to themselves establish a list of requirements necessary for conferring the title of labor veteran (clause 4, article 7 of the Law “On Veterans” dated January 12, 1995 No. 5-FZ), and the presence of continuous work experience of a certain length may be one of them.

Find out what your pension will be if you have no work experience from this publication.

Preferential categories and terms for them

In some situations, employees of certain industries are forced to resign of their own free will: for them, the job search period has been extended, including:

military personnel who are in the army under a contract (the employment period for such citizens is up to 1 year);
veterans and military personnel who have served in the army for more than 25 years (do not have strict time limits for searching for a new job);
government employees and State Duma deputies (must find a new job within 6 months from the date of dismissal).

As you can see, the process of dismissal and calculation of continuous service has a lot of nuances, ignorance of which can cause many problems. If any arise, you can get a comprehensive answer to your question by contacting a lawyer for help.

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Results

Having lost the status of a mandatory value, continuous work experience continues to be used by employers as a condition that determines the possibility of additional incentives for employees.
Many employers, when determining the length of service, continue to use the officially discontinued rules for calculating it. You can find more complete information on the topic in ConsultantPlus. Free trial access to the system for 2 days.

Definition of the concept

Continuous work experience is the length of service of an employee during which the breaks between transitions from one organization to another due to dismissal do not exceed the duration established by law.

In fact, continuous service upon dismissal in 2021 is calculated in the same way as before: in order to maintain it, no more than one month must pass between the termination of the employment contract with the previous employer and employment in a new job.

It often happens that after being fired, a person registers with the Employment Center and is looking for a new job, but suddenly falls ill and, due to the illness, the interval between dismissal and subsequent employment increases. In this case, the work experience is not interrupted, since the illness is considered a force majeure circumstance and in order to maintain the work experience, it is enough for him to obtain the appropriate medical certificates.