Employment statement

Use this when an employer asks for the written terms a new worker gets. It records what the employer and the worker agreed; it is not a new contract (in Norway the written employment contract itself is what the law asks for, and both sign it).

A drafting check, not legal advice: it reads whether each particular is there, never whether a term is fair, usual or allowed.

How to make one

1. Read what the person gave you: the offer, their notes, the job ad. Ask nothing they already say.
2. Pick the law with "law" and the language with "language":

An employer in Canada follows the Canada Labour Code only when it is federally regulated (banks, airlines, trucking across a provincial border, telecoms); any other employer in Ontario uses on. Ask when the notes do not say. A Belgian statement is written in the language of the region the workplace is in, read from its postcode: Dutch in Flanders, French in Wallonia, either in Brussels by the worker's language; leave language out and the script picks it. 3. Write a small spec file (JSON) from the template. 4. Ask for what only the employer can give when the notes leave it out: the pay and how it is paid, the hours, the paid leave, the notice, and the country's own items below. Never fill one in yourself. A country's note is one of them: the UK disciplinary rules and the person a grievance goes to come from the notes, never a stock line such as "procedures are in place, ask HR". 5. Build the statement:

python3 <skill folder>/scripts/statement_create.py spec.json statement.docx

6. Run the pack check and fix what it names: python3 <skill folder>/../_checks/packcheck.py employment-statement <your output>

Nothing given is left off

statement_create.py stops before anything is laid out when the spec holds a key it has no field for, a value of another shape, or an item the chosen law's list has no heading for (breaks under uk), and names the key. spec.fields.json beside this file lists every key. A term with no field of its own goes in further, one line each, printed under a last heading before the signatures; a particular of the employer (its registered office, a second number) in employer.further, printed with the parties. Never leave a fact out to make the error go away: put it where the message says, or say in your reply what the page does not carry.

The check fails a heading with nothing under it (EMPLOY-EMPTY, a house rule).

Run the check with --in and the working folder. It then reads the person's own files there and asks, once and never as a fail (NOTES-FLOOR): which e-mail addresses, numbers, dates and amounts the notes hold and the page does not, which of them the page carries changed. Answer the question once: put each on the page as the notes have it, or say in your reply why it does not belong there. Never change one to shorten the list.

Work in the working folder, the folder the person is working in: write the data file there, run the script from there by its full path (<skill folder> is the folder this file is in) and give the output a path there. The builder refuses an output path inside the library's own folder, where the person never looks; hand back the path in the working folder.

Look for company.json in the working folder first: it holds the company's own particulars, written once (name, address, VAT and register numbers, registered office, share capital, bank account). The builder fills from it what the data file leaves out of the sender, stops when the two disagree, and the check fails a page whose sender disagrees with it (COMPANY-FILE). When the folder has none and the person gives their company's particulars, write it once: python3 <skill folder>/../_shared/company.py make company.json name="..." country=.. street="..." postcode=.. city=.. vat_id=.. register_number=..; it says which particulars that country's company law still wants. One the files do not give is declared with unknown=<key>, never made up.

What the statement holds

Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland, each from its own law:

• United Kingdom: Statutory Sick Pay is paid from the first full day of sickness absence, with no lower earnings limit, at the weekly rate or 80% of average weekly earnings if lower (from 6 April 2026, Employment Rights Act 2025 ss. 10 and 11; https://www.business.gov.uk/campaign/employment-changes/employers/statutory-sick-pay/). Dated note, 2026-10-20: a written statement of the right to join a trade union, given with the statement of particulars, is planned from 1 January 2027 (Employment Rights Act 2025; government response of 25 September 2026, regulations due in November 2026). It is not in force today, so the starter does not carry it; the builder warns for a start on or after 1 January 2027.
• Belgium: the document is due by the first day of work (art. 4 § 1). Art. 5 binds it only for a worker outside the work rules act of 8 April 1965; for everyone else the work rules carry those items, so give each one or write that it is in the work rules (arbeidsreglement, règlement de travail). There is no trial period in an ordinary contract since 1 January 2014; a student contract's first three days and agency work are the exceptions.
• Netherlands: items a to e, h, i and q within a week of the start, the rest within a month (7:655 (3)); the employer signs the opgave, and an electronic one needs the worker's consent and a qualified signature. Whether there is a pension scheme, an agency or payroll contract and an on-call contract is always answered, yes or no. Probation: none in a contract of six months or less, one month in a fixed term under two years, two months otherwise (7:652).
• Austria: the Dienstzettel is due without delay after the start (§ 2 (1)). The basic pay is an amount in figures, never a reference (§ 2 (5)). Probation is at most one month (ABGB § 1158 (2), AngG § 19 (2)).
• Ireland: the core terms of s. 3(1A) within five days of the start, the rest within one month (s. 3(1)); the statement is signed and dated by or for the employer (s. 3(4), s. 3A). Give the hours expected per normal working day and week and the pay reference period under the National Minimum Wage Act 2000. Probation is at most six months, twelve only exceptionally (s. 6D).

Spain, Italy and Poland, each from its own law:

• Spain: Real Decreto 723/2026 of 9 September transposes the Directive and has been in force since 5 October 2026; it repealed Real Decreto 1659/1998, whose list was shorter and whose time was two months. The information is now due before the employment begins (art. 7.1), for any employment of more than four weeks (art. 2.2), on paper or electronically (art. 6). The base pay and its supplements, the working time, the holidays, the probation, the training, the ending and the Social Security item may be given by a precise reference to the law or the collective agreement (art. 3.3); nothing else may. The protocol against sexual harassment is asked for whatever the company's size (art. 3.2 l)). Probation: the collective agreement sets the limit; without one, six months for técnicos titulados, two for others, one in a temporary contract of six months or less (Estatuto de los Trabajadores art. 14.1).
• Italy: the contract or the hiring notice is handed over before work starts (art. 1 c. 2); what they do not give follows in writing within seven days, and letters g), i), l), m), q), q-bis) and r) within a month (c. 3). Letters h), i), l), m), n), o) and r) may be given by naming the law or the collective agreement (c. 5-bis). A private employer gives the single alphanumeric code CNEL assigns to the national agreement (q-bis), added by D.L. 62/2026; the date it took effect is not proved against Normattiva, so ask for the code and say it may not yet be required). Probation is at most six months; in a fixed term one day of actual work per fifteen calendar days, at most fifteen days up to six months and thirty days under twelve (D.Lgs. 104/2022 art. 7). A posting abroad is informed whatever its length, a mission over four consecutive weeks (art. 2).
• Poland: the employment contract itself is concluded in writing and states the terms of art. 29 § 1; this file repeats them and gives the information of § 3, due within 7 days of admission to work (the social insurance institution within 30). The information of § 3 pkt 1 a) to f), h) to k) and pkt 2 may name the provisions of law instead (§ 3(1)); the contract's own terms may not. A trial-period contract runs at most 3 months, 1 or 2 before a short fixed term (art. 25 § 2, § 2(2)).

Outside Europe:

• Canada (federal): the Canada Labour Standards Regulations s. 3.1 (a) to (m): the parties, the job and its duties, the address of the ordinary place of work, the start date, the term, any probation, the qualifications, any required training, the hours with how they are counted and the overtime rules, the wage and the overtime rate, how often pay days and other pay come, the mandatory deductions, and how work-related expenses are claimed. Due within the first 30 days (Canada Labour Code s. 253.2(1)). In French: déclaration d'emploi.
• Ontario: O. Reg. 285/01 s. 1.2 (2), for an employer with 25 or more employees: the legal and any operating name, an address, a telephone number and a contact name, where the work will be, the starting wage, the pay period and pay day, and the expected hours. Due before the first day, or as soon after as reasonably possible. Give the Ministry's ESA poster within 30 days as well (Employment Standards Act, 2000 s. 2(5) and (7)).
• Australia: no law lists the contents of a contract. The statement says the type of employment (full-time, part-time, casual, fixed term), the award or agreement, the pay and how often it is paid (at least monthly, Fair Work Act 2009 s 323), the hours, the leave and notice the National Employment Standards give, and superannuation. It names the information statements the employee gets: the Fair Work Information Statement (s 125), and the Casual Employment Information Statement (s 125B) or the Fixed Term Contract Information Statement (s 333K). Download the current ones from fairwork.gov.au and attach them; this pack does not copy them. A fixed term with an option to renew or extend sets term.renewal (times, latest_end): s 333E allows one renewal and two years in all unless an exception in s 333F applies, and the check holds the statement to that.
• United States: no federal law asks for a written offer or statement; never say one does. The letter states at-will employment (or a set term), the Fair Labor Standards Act classification (non-exempt: overtime at one and one-half times the regular rate over 40 hours, 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1); exempt: name the exemption), the pay rate and basis, the pay days and the hours. Where the work is in New York (Labor Law § 195(1)) or California (Labor Code § 2810.5, non-exempt employees) the pay notice items follow in their own section; set work_state and state_notice. New York wants the notice in the employee's primary language too; the state Department of Labor publishes its forms in other languages. In Montana the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act (Mont. Code Ann. 39-2-904) may require good cause after the probationary period, so an at-will sentence may not hold; this is not proved against the current code: ask the employer.

A particular that does not apply is written "Not applicable" with the reason (in the document's language), never left out. The statement is due by the seventh calendar day of work in the EU, Sweden, Norway (immediately for less than a month), Denmark and Finland (Art. 5(1), LAS 6 c §, aml. § 14-5, lov 501 § 3, TSL 2:4 § 4 mom.), by the first day in the UK (ERA s.1(2)) and Belgium, within a week in the Netherlands and Austria, within five days in Ireland, before the employment begins in Spain, within seven days in Italy and Poland, within 30 days under the Canada Labour Code, before the first day in Ontario and at hiring in New York and California, and before departure for work abroad over the law's threshold.

Never work these out

A notice period, a number of holiday days, a minimum wage or an overtime rate turns on the worker's age, service and hours, on the award or collective agreement and on the state or province. Write what the employer gives you, or point to the law that sets it where the law lets you: "the notice section 86 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 sets out", "oppsigelsesfristene i arbeidsmiljøloven § 15-3", "opsigelsesvarslerne følger funktionærlovens § 2". Never compute one. Some particulars can never be given by pointing elsewhere: the parties, the place, the work, the start, the term, the probation and the collective agreement in Norway; numbers 1 to 6, 12 and 14 in Denmark; the parties, dates, place and work in Finland; items a to e, j and l to p in the Netherlands (7:655 (2)); the parties, dates, grading, work, basic pay, collective agreements and insurers in Austria (§ 2 (5)); the parties, place, work, dates and expected hours in Ireland (s. 3(3)); everything but pay, working time, holidays, probation, training, ending and Social Security in Spain (art. 3.3); everything but letters h), i), l), m), n), o) and r) in Italy (c. 5-bis); the contract's own terms in Poland.

When a collective agreement or award applies, name it and who made it; never restate its terms.

What the check reads

Say what passed, not more

Tell the person which checks the statement passed and against which source. Never call it lawful, compliant or approved, never call a term unlawful, and give no legal advice; suggest the employer checks anything the check flags with an adviser.

Sources

The official text of each law, as in force on 2026-10-20: