Hired for 40 hours, but client does not give me any job or responds

[25005175 · Accepted solution]

Then you wait. Assume that the job does not exist until you receive instruction. 

ETA: Since, in a later reply you revealed that you accomplished the work that you were hired to do and the Client simply hasn't responded to your submission, I change my response to agree with Iwan: good job finishing the work; now you just wait to automatically get paid!

[iwan-spillebeen]

Did you talk to the client prior to accepting the job offer?

[b5f28224]

Yes, we have spoken.  They requested help on something specific.  They sent me the contract for 40 hours per week, I accepted.  I sent them the information requested (only took me 10 hours last week instead of 40).  I send the information and that's it, no contact from the client.  No feedback on that, and no new tasks to do. 

[tlsanders]

Did the client tell you they wanted you to work 40 hours, or did they just allow up to 40 hours/week to be logged on the contract?

[iwan-spillebeen]

That means that the work is done, the client was a bit careless with not specifying the maximum number of hours and leave it to the default 40.  You worked on the task and delivered it within 10 hours, job done.

The client may wish to keep the contract open to ask you to do more work in future and since they don't know the amount of work they may have opted for the maximum possible hours.  In any case those 10 hours are now in review and if there are no disputes (they're rare on hourly contracts) then the work will be cleared by Friday, it will then move into Pending and you will be paid for those 10 hours by Wednesday of next week.

[2a05aa63]

40 h/w is the default when opening a contract. It doesn't mean that you should use all of it or that the client is required to give you that many hours of work per week.

[2779bde0]

Was an escrow account set up with milestones? This is crucial 

[iwan-spillebeen]

This is an hourly contract, not a fixed price contract with milestones.

[prestonhunter]

re: "Hired for 40 hours, but client does not give me any job or responds"

You were not "hired for 40 hours."

You were not "hired to do 40 hours of work per week."

A client hired you using an hourly contract, and that client did not take the time to CHANGE the DEFAULT setting for the maximum number of hours per week that the freelancer can work.

The "maximum number of hours per week" is NOT the "number of hours per week that the client plans to have the freelancer work."