Part time working

A part-time worker is a person who works fewer hours than the number of hours that full-time workers in the organisation are contracted to work. It often happens that an employee returning from maternity leave will ask her employer for a move from full-time working to part-time working to fit her working life around caring for her child.

Common part-time working arrangements include: working fewer days per week than full-time workers, for example three days per week; working fewer hours per day than full-time workers, for example four hours per day; and job-sharing, which is where two or more workers share one role.