Part-time job in Switzerland: holidays, overtime, 13th salary, occupational pension and unemployment, what the law says

Art. 329a CO grants four weeks of holiday per year of service, five up to the age of 20. This entitlement does not shrink with the workload: it translates into days according to your schedule. At 60% over three days a week, four weeks are twelve days of holiday; at 60% spread over five short days, they are twenty days at 60%. The total of hours is the same. When the year of service is incomplete, the entitlement is pro rata to its length (art. 329a para. 3).

Holidays are in principle taken during the corresponding year of service, with at least two weeks in a row (art. 329c CO). The employer sets the dates taking your wishes into account, as far as compatible with the business.

While the contract lasts, holidays cannot be replaced by money (art. 329d para. 2 CO). SECO recalls that a holiday allowance paid with the hourly wage is admitted by case law only for irregular workloads, provided it appears in the contract and on every payslip with its amount; “holidays included” is not enough, and an employer who omits these mentions risks paying the holidays twice.

According to the SECO FAQ, a public holiday falling on a day you do not work gives no right to compensation. Working Monday to Wednesday when the holidays fall on Thursday is a dead loss; spreading the days over the week or alternating them limits it. For monthly-paid staff, the salary of a public holiday on a normal working day is maintained; for hourly-paid staff, it is due only if the contract or the collective agreement provides for it, except 1 August, the only federal holiday, which is paid by law.

The paid leave to care for a family member or partner with a health problem (art. 329h CO) also applies part time: at most three days per case and ten days per year of service, counted in your schedule.

Hours worked beyond the duration agreed in the contract are overtime, and SECO specifies that “for part-time employees too, the contractually agreed working time is decisive”. At 50%, the 22nd hour of the week is already overtime, not the 43rd.

Overtime not compensated by time off is paid at the normal wage plus at least a quarter (art. 321c para. 3 CO). A written agreement, a standard contract or a collective agreement may provide another rule. SECO notes that contracts often limit compensation to hours exceeding the company’s usual working time, and that such a clause is lawful: read yours before counting.

The employer may compensate overtime with time off of at least equal length, but only with your consent and within a suitable period (art. 321c para. 2).

Beyond the legal maximum (45 hours a week for office, technical and sales staff of large companies, 50 hours for the others, art. 9 Labour Act), the 25% supplement is mandatory and cannot be excluded by contract (art. 13 Labour Act). Part time, you rarely exceed these ceilings.

If you raise children up to the age of fifteen or care for a relative, the employer must take these responsibilities into account when setting your hours, cannot assign you extra work without your consent and must grant you on request a lunch break of at least an hour and a half (art. 36 Labour Act).

In the cantons and cities with a minimum wage (Geneva CHF 24.59 an hour in 2026, Neuchâtel, Jura, Ticino, Basel-Stadt), the minimum is hourly: it applies whatever the workload. Our guide to the minimum wage by canton gives the amounts.

No law imposes the 13th salary; it is due if it appears in the contract, the collective agreement or the company’s practice. Part time, it corresponds to one month of your part-time salary, and pro rata to the months worked in an incomplete year. For a gratuity within the meaning of art. 322d CO, the proportional share on departure is due only if it was agreed. Our guide to the 13th salary in Switzerland details the cases.

Art. 324a CO obliges the employer to pay the salary for a limited time in case of non-culpable incapacity (illness, accident, pregnancy) once the employment has lasted more than three months: three weeks in the first year, then a longer period set equitably, or according to your canton’s scale. The workload changes nothing to the duration; it changes the amount.

Each contract has its salary, its holidays, its collective agreement and its overtime clause. SECO recalls that your other commitments count when judging whether overtime can be demanded in good faith.

Mandatory occupational pension insurance applies only to the employee who receives “from the same employer” an annual salary above CHF 22,680 (art. 2 para. 1 and art. 7 BVG/LPP; 2025 amount, unchanged on 1 January 2026 according to the FSIO key figures). A 30% job paid CHF 20,000 opens no mandatory second pillar, and neither do two jobs at CHF 20,000, since the threshold is measured with each employer.

Only the part of the salary between CHF 26,460 and 90,720 is insured (art. 8 para. 1 BVG/LPP); if the result is below CHF 3,780, it is rounded up to that amount (para. 2). At 50% of a position paid CHF 80,000 full time, the salary is CHF 40,000 and the coordinated salary CHF 13,540: a third of the salary, against two thirds full time. Contributions, and therefore the future pension, follow this proportion.

An employee working for several employers whose total salary exceeds CHF 22,680 may insure voluntarily with the Substitute Occupational Benefit Institution or with the fund of one of their employers if its regulations allow it, and each employer must then reimburse half of the contributions on the salary it pays (art. 46 BVG/LPP). Few people do it; yet it is the only way to build a second pillar with two small jobs.

Many pension fund regulations lower the entry threshold or adapt the coordination deduction to the workload: this is the point to check in the fund’s regulations before signing a part-time contract, or to ask the employer. The BVG reform that would have lowered the threshold and made the deduction proportional to the salary was rejected at the ballot box on 22 September 2024 (FSIO); the law has therefore not changed.

If the salary drops temporarily because of illness, accident, unemployment or parenthood, the coordinated salary is maintained at least for the duration of the salary entitlement or the leave (art. 8 para. 3 BVG/LPP), unless you ask for its reduction.

Partially unemployed is the person who has no job and seeks part time only, or who holds a part-time job and seeks to replace it with full time or to complete it (art. 10 para. 2 AVIG/LACI). Looking for a 60% after a full-time job is therefore admitted; the benefit is calculated on the workload sought.

For the person who has a part-time job and seeks more, the loss of work is taken into account only if it reaches at least two full working days within two weeks (art. 5 AVIV/OACI). Going from 100% to 90% opens no entitlement.

The daily allowance is 80% of insured earnings, 70% without dependent children above CHF 140 a day (art. 22 AVIG/LACI). Insured earnings are the salary normally obtained during the reference period (art. 23), earnings from several jobs are added up, and earnings below CHF 500 a month are not insured (art. 40 AVIV/OACI). Monthly earnings are divided by 21.7 to obtain daily earnings (art. 40a).

It is possible if you are registered and genuinely seek the complement, but the loss of work you caused yourself is culpable unemployment: the benefit is suspended for a period proportional to the seriousness (art. 30 para. 1 let. a AVIG/LACI), as after a resignation. Our guide to unemployment after a resignation explains the mechanism.

Nobody is deemed unemployed or partially unemployed without having registered for placement (art. 10 para. 3 AVIG/LACI); job search efforts and controls apply to part time as well.

Changing the workload amends the contract, which requires the agreement of both parties. The employer may refuse without reason. Collective agreements, company regulations and the public sector sometimes provide a right to reduce after a birth; check yours.

An imposed reduction is an amendment of the contract: if you refuse it, the employer can obtain it only through a notice of amendment, respecting the notice period, and protection against abusive dismissal applies. Our guide to the notice period in Switzerland gives the periods.

A precise workload rather than a range, fixed days, the distribution of tasks, the start date and a clause to return to the previous workload. Working hours must take family responsibilities into account (art. 36 Labour Act), which creates no right to part time but frames the hours once the workload is agreed.

Before accepting a small workload, ask the employer whether its pension fund lowers the entry threshold or adapts the coordination deduction. That single answer can be worth hundreds of francs a year in contributions, and therefore in pension.

Desired workload, telework, target salary, location, type of contract: these conditions are part of your profile, and this is what made our job market barometer possible. A recruiter who contacts you has seen your workload: you no longer negotiate a 60% after three interviews for a full-time job.

Recruiters send proposals to the profiles whose conditions match the position, salary and workload included. An 80% job is not proposed to you if you asked for 50%, and neither is a full-time one.

With 44% of candidates open to part time, a position published at 60 or 80% reaches profiles a full-time job does not. Our guide to writing a job ad recalls stating the workload in the title.