If an employer doesn't pay

1. The contract must exist before day one

Article 33(3) of the Labour Code: you may only be let onto the job after an employment contract is signed. If you are told to start tomorrow and do the paperwork later, the employer has already broken the law before paying you a tenge. Ask for the contract before you start, not after.

Keep everything: your copy of the contract, the messages, the listing you applied through, the name and number of whoever hired you. Without them there is nothing to prove.

2. Check yourself in Enbek HR

Employment contracts in Kazakhstan are registered in the state system (ESUTD). You can see yours in your account on enbek.kz and in the Enbek HR app. That evidence sits with the state, not with the employer and not with us — it cannot be taken away or rewritten.

If the contract is not there, that is a separate violation, and since 12 March 2026 the employer faces a fine for not registering it. Check in your first week of work, not after the money fails to arrive.

3. Put it in writing first

Message or email the employer: how much is owed, for which days, and by what date you expect payment. Messages are evidence. A conversation is not.

4. Late payment carries a penalty

Article 113 of the Labour Code: for every day of delay the employer owes a penalty of 1.25 times the National Bank base rate on the amount owed, per year. It runs from the first overdue day and is paid together with the debt.

There is a calculator at the bottom of this page: enter the amount and the date you should have been paid, and it works out the penalty and shows the formula.

5. Complain to us if the job is ours

If an employer posted the job with us, it has a Complain button: the complaint goes to a JumysTAP admin and the employer will not learn who complained. We can take the job down and cut the company off from the platform, but we cannot make anyone pay — the money never passes through us. If the listing is marked From the internet, complain on the source site: that employer is not registered with us.

6. Filing with the labour inspectorate

This works no matter where you found the job. The filing goes in online through the e-Otinish portal; the inspector runs a check and may issue the employer a binding order to pay. A ready-made text is assembled at the bottom of this page — fill in the fields and copy it.

7. Court and deadlines

Article 160 of the Labour Code gives you one year from the day you learned of the violation to bring a pay dispute. That is a lot of time, but not unlimited.

Normally the law asks you to go through a reconciliation commission first (art. 159), but micro and small businesses do not set one up — and nearly every employer hiring teenagers is a sole trader or a small company. So in most cases you can go straight to court.

This is not legal advice

Every case is different, and the texts and figures here are a starting point, not a court ruling. If the amount matters or the employer stops talking, see a lawyer or the labour inspectorate in person.