I have concluded a labor contract that stipulates the contract period as follows.
2015/03/01-2016 /01/31 (11 months)
2016/03/ 01-2017/01/31 (11 months)
After expiration of the first labor contract period, the company’s HR representative told me that they would hire through an open hiring process; I resubmitted the same resume and was hired for the same job again with the same conditions one month later. There was a simple interview process, which I participated in alone and there seemed to not be any other applicants. Am I entitled to severance pay if I work one year or more?
The employment relationship for labor contracts with fixed terms is terminated upon expiry of the contract period, but when the contract term is renewed through another labor contract once the first one expires or the same conditions appear repeatedly in the contracts for the same person, this constitutes continuous service and the years of continuous service will be counted.
However, after expiry of the labor contract, if the worker can apply during the new open hiring and practical processes occur such as posting the job, screening documents, interview, and assigning a new employee ID number, each labor contract period can be viewed as disconnected. In this case, however, if the open recruitment process is merely formal, and in practical terms the same workers are re-hired and expectations form for renewal or continued employment, and the open hiring procedures are merely to evade legal obligations, then each period of the repeated contracts shall be recognized as forming a continuous period of work, and must be summed up together.