Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): Mandatory Vocational Training is Working Time

In a recent decision on 28 October 2021, the CJUE stated that the period during which an employee attends vocational training required by the employer represents working time.
A decisive factor is the fact that the worker is required to be physically present at the place determined by the employer and to remain available to the employer in order to be able, if necessary, to provide his or her services immediately.

In the case C-909/19, the Romanian Court of Appeal posed a prejudicial question to the CJEU in order to see whether such a mandatory vocational training, after completing the normal hours of work, at the premises of the training services provider, away from his or her place of work, and without performing any of his or her service duties, constitutes working time.

The decision qualifies as working time a period which does not meet the defining elements of working time laid down in Directive 2003/88/EC – Organisation of Working Time (Article 2(1)), namely any period during which the employee is at work, available to the employer and carries out his activity or duties.

The Court highlights that:

The workplace must be understood as any place where the worker is required to exercise an activity on the employer’s instruction, including where that place is not the place where he or she usually carries out his or her professional duties;
Where a worker receives instructions from his or her employer to attend vocational training so as to be able to carry out his or her duties and, moreover, where that employer has itself signed the vocational training contract with the undertaking called upon to provide that training, it must be held that, during the periods of vocational training, that worker is at his or her employer’s disposal;
the fact that the vocational training in question does not take place at the worker’s usual place of work, but at the premises of the undertaking providing the training services, does not alter the fact that the worker is required to be physically present at the place determined by the employer and, consequently, does not, prevent the periods of vocational training in question from being classified as ‘working time’;
where the vocational training is undertaken at the employer’s request and where, consequently, the worker is subject, as part of that training, to the employer’s instructions, it is irrelevant that the activity carried out by a worker during periods of vocational training differs from that which he or she carries out in the course of his or her normal duties.

Following this decision, National Courts will decide whether this overtime has to be compensated financially or not. However, employers should take into account this decision and its effects, in order to avoid possible claims of compensation for overtime related to employees’ training.