VwGH: What travel time to and from work is reasonable for a full-time or part-time job?

Dec 1, 2020 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

The individual seeking revision, who had been receiving unemployment benefits or emergency unemployment assistance for a longer period of time, was assigned a job of 25 hours per week by the Labor Market Service (Arbeitsmarktservice, AMS). The daily travel time, to and from work, would have been 2 hours. The slight exceeding of the reasonable travel time (Sec. 9 (2) Unemployment Insurance Act (Arbeitslosenversicherungsgesetz, AlVG)), according to the previous instance, is permissible in this case. The appellant then argued that it was not legally justifiable to transfer the exceeding of the daily maximum travel time approved for full-time employment to the situation of part-time employment.

According to Sec. 9 (2) AlVG the reasonable daily travel time for the outward and return journey is in any case 1.5 hours and in case of a full-time employment 2 hours. Under special circumstances, travel times significantly longer than this are reasonable. With regard to the "reasonable daily travel time for the outward and return journey" as defined in Sec. 9 (2) of the AlVG for full-time employment, the Supreme Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof, VwGH) has already ruled:

The reasonable travel time (2 hours) in Sec. 9 (2) AlVG corresponds to a quarter of a daily normal working time of 8 hours and is independent of the actual average daily working time. If this limit is exceeded by approximately 50%, the travel time is considerably longer and is only reasonable under special circumstances. This case law can be applied to the present part-time employment. Here the travel time is substantially above the limit and only then reasonable under special circumstances, if this limit is exceeded by about 50%.

In this case, the excess of slightly more than 50% was considered reasonable, since the present part-time employment of 25 hours per week is not the typical part-time employment of 20 hours per week and special circumstances in the sense of the final clause of Sec. 9 (2) AlVG could be assumed.

VwGH Ra 2020/08/0031-7 (09 June 2020)