My OH has been on RAV for the last 6+ months and finally she received an offer.
She wants to start at the end of the summer vacations as we already booked two trips abroad for the school break, one in July and one in August. To make things more complicated, the Ferienhort registration deadline has already passeed and we didn’t sign up anyone, thinking it would be okay to manage a mid-August start, so we need to take care of kids somehow.
The company is pushing for an earlier start. Making her start early would mean that she uses up more vacation days than she gets (pro rata vacation days ~12.5), this is not even enough to cover our holidays, so she would need to end up taking unpaid leave.
If the company agreed to a 11th Aug start, RAV would happily pay out until the start date.
But if she takes an earlier start, the RAV payments stop immediately, so by agreeing to help the company ramp up faster, she would lose about 2 weeks of pay for “being nice” and I’m trying to see the best (legal!) way forward to optimize the situation.
I’ve chatGPT-d my way into a solution with a “Kurzmandat” (temporary contract) that is doable between now and August, then take the - otherwise legal - RAV “vacation” but it still leaves us 2 weeks short.
Two questions:
did anyone have a similar experience? Would the authorities understand this setup and be accomodating (not needing to “fake apply” until the time comes + paying fully until the day), even though they will see that the Kurzmandat is for the same company?
how does this Kurzmandat work for taxation / employment? Does she need an umbrella company or is this the same as being employed, just on a fix date range (“befristeter vertrag”)?
First, ask yourself if the hassle is worth it or if it would be easier to take a little less money and take unpaid leave. Only you can decide. RAV can answer your questions most precisely regarding unemployment benefits, and your future employer can answer your questions most precisely regarding taking more holidays than are available for the remainder of the year and what contract setup they prefer.
It is not unusual to sign a temporary contract with an employer that one will later join permanently. However, RAV will want transparency, so one must inform his/her RAV advisor about both the temporary contract and the subsequent permanent offer.
You do not need to “fake apply” for jobs during a period covered by a valid employment contract, even temporary ones, but you must keep RAV informed and follow their guidance.
In Switzerland, a “Kurzmandat” or temporary contract is typically a fixed-term employment contract (“befristeter Arbeitsvertrag”).
You only need an umbrella company if your employer requires it or if you are working as a freelancer or independent contractor. If you are a direct employee, the company handles payroll, tax withholding, and social security contributions, just as it does for any other employee.
a month of unpaid leave equals to… well, a month of salary, while she could instead get 80% of that on RAV. I’m not trying to optimize every last penny, but these are heavy thousands of francs.
We need to cover the school holidays, so practically 13th July to 10th August and then yet another week in October (already booked) and then the couple of days before Christmas, ideally. Makes a demand of about 29 days before 1st Jan. We’re about 3 weeks short.
I think some amount of holiday is OK for RAV, but I would be surprised if they’d be willing to pay you to go on holiday when you can work instead. Normally payments are only available when you are available for work.
Why so? I think negotiating to start in few weeks is a reasonable thing, isn’t it? Besides, you can always quote “family obligations”, social services are supposed to be pro family.
Furthermore, aren’t job seekers registered with RAV also allowed to have some paid vacation?
Another way to finesse it is to have the temporary contract for the full period including the holiday, but paid at half rate (or whatever the time proportion is). RAV should pay something in case this is less than your insured salary.
This is the fact of the matter. RAV is an insurance that covers your loss of income until you can find another job. I know that many people abuse it for extra paid holidays, but that is technically insurance fraud.
Swiss unemployement insurance gives you a week of holiday per 60 days on unemployment benefits, so that may be something to work with. That would require your prospective employer agreeing to hire from a later date.
As others have noted, there is a certain allowance for refusing jobs altogether if they are really unsuitable, so that might be an option if taking unpaid leave is not realistic. As PhilMongoose said, there may be an option for starting part-time in a way that reflects the real paid work she does during that period, and then moving to full-time later. But that would be up to the employer.
You booked a holiday that’s longer than the period allowed by RAV? So that’s already a no go, even before having the job.
The right thing to do is get the job starting after the allowed period from RAV (12.5?) and then ask the company to get an unpaid leave for the remaining days. They won’t be angry for 2 days if you explain what happened.
„Can we do this elaborate scheme my OH came up with with AI to cheat RAV into paying our holidays” is a nice way to start an employment relationship.
Maybe from the employee perspective or if the employer is fine with a later start date. If you could work and get off RAV payments, but you don’t or delay it, it’s still an abuse of the system and could be sanctioned.
If “family obligations” prevent you from taking on a 100% job immediately, it can also be sanctioned.
The right thing to do would be to bring up the holidays plans with the employer and try to negotiate extra (paid) holidays, as other suggested in return for being able to start right away.
Taking your RAV holidays while looking for a job, and maybe sneak in a few extra days. The first part is absolutely ok, the second against the rules, but I don’t see much harm here
Postponing your employment to extend RAV payments to do vacations. In my limited experience, you can stop applying and showing up for appointments if you landed a job starting in, let’s say 2 month. Depending on the field of work, I guess. But here the employer wants an early start.
Align with the employer to structure your work contract in a way to start early, but then create a month of voluntary unemployment to wangle some additional RAV payments
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