Facts
[H.], born in 1963, has been employed as a nurse and home care worker by Hausbetreuungsdienst ________ AG in an open-ended on-call employment relationship since March 1, 2009. On October 7, 2011, she registered with the syndicom unemployment insurance fund due to a decline in employment. However, the unemployment insurance fund denied her claim for unemployment benefits, as [H.] had not suffered any compensable loss of work and earnings.
The Insurance Court of the Canton of St. Gallen dismissed the appeal filed against this decision. [H.] then filed an appeal in public law matters with the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court stated that in the case of on-call work, there is generally no guarantee of a specific scope of employment, and therefore, during the time when the employee is not called to work, there is no compensable loss of work and earnings.
However, this general principle can be deviated from if the on-call work has been essentially more or less constant over a longer period. In such a case, the actual hours worked are to be considered as normal. For long-term employment relationships, the annual working hours and deviations from the annual average can be used as a basis.
In the present case, [H.] had been employed by…