Working in Portugal - Vocational Training

According to Portuguese law, employers must provide employees with vocational training appropriate to their classification. Continuing training of personnel in each year must involve at least 10 percent of employees who have contracts of indefinite duration in each enterprise.

In the year they are hired, employees are entitled to training after they have served six months of their contract, the number of hours of training being proportional to that time.

Employees must be guaranteed a minimum of 35 hours of certified continuing training per year. 

Certified training hours which are not organised under the employer's responsibility for reasons attributable thereto are converted into cumulative time-off rights over a maximum of three years.

Time off for training is proportional to normal working hours, provides entitlement to pay and counts as actual length of service. When the contract of employment terminates, employees are entitled to receive the pay corresponding to the time allowed for training they have not been provided with.

Temporary Employees

Temporary employees at the service of a user enterprise for an uninterrupted period of more than 18 months are entitled to undergo continuing training, organised by the user enterprise.

The initial grade needed by young people taken on to provide work is ensured by attending a form of education or training that is a requirement for young people under 16 years of age who have completed compulsory schooling but who do not have a vocational qualification, and young people who have completed the minimum age for starting work without having completed compulsory schooling or who do not have a vocational qualification. Such training is intended to provide young people with increased levels of education or a vocational qualification. 

The training has a total duration of not less than 1,000 hours and must be delivered in phases lasting between 200 and 300 hours per quarter. If a young person who has not completed compulsory schooling or who does not have a vocational qualification attends training that provides a vocational qualification and academic advancement which is not equivalent to compulsory schooling, they must undergo additional training which is equivalent to compulsory schooling. The training may be ensured by the employer themselves, in partnership with the Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional (IEFP) [Institute of Employment and Vocational Training], or by means of a public or private accredited training organisation. 

The training must begin within two months of entering into the contract of employment. If the young person's contract of employment terminates for any reason before the training is concluded, the IEFP provides for it to be concluded. The employer is entitled to compensation for training costs incurred in relation to the young person.

Useful information:

• Código do Trabalho [Labour Code], Law No 99/2003 of 27 August
• Law noº 35/2004 of 29 July

Text last edited on: 12/2004

Source: European Union
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