Short answer. Not automatically. Article 291 of the Labor Code counts the three-year deadline from the time the cause of action accrued, not from your last day of work as such. For a claim that arose earlier — unpaid wages for a specific pay period, for example — the clock can start running well before your employment actually ends.
What the law says
All money claims arising from employer-employee relations accruing during the effectivity of this Code shall be filed within three (3) years from the time the cause of action accrued; otherwise they shall be forever barred.
Labor Code, Article 291 — Prescription Of Money Claims. Read the full provision →
What the statute actually measures
Article 291 states that all money claims arising from employer-employee relations accruing during the effectivity of this Code shall be filed within three (3) years from the time the cause of action accrued; otherwise they shall be forever barred. The trigger the article names is accrual of the cause of action — the point at which the right to sue for that particular claim came into existence — not a fixed event like the end of employment.
Why 'last day of work' is not the same thing
Accrual and the last day of work often happen to be close together, but the article does not equate them. A claim for unpaid overtime worked in a specific month, for instance, arises when that pay was due and not given, which could be years before the employee eventually resigns or is terminated. Treating the last day of work as the universal starting line risks understating how much time has actually run on an older, unpaid claim, or overstating it for one that only became due close to separation.
What Article 291 does not spell out
The article names accrual as the trigger but does not itself define, claim by claim, exactly when accrual happens for every type of money claim — unpaid wages, unpaid benefits, illegal deductions, and so on can each have their own accrual point tied to when that particular amount became due and was not paid. So while the three-year period itself is fixed, identifying the correct starting date for any specific claim is a separate, fact-dependent question this article does not answer in the abstract.
What this means for your situation
If you are trying to work out whether a claim is still timely, the relevant date is when that specific amount became due and unpaid, not simply the date your employment ended. Different unpaid amounts from different periods can have different accrual dates and therefore different deadlines, so it is worth identifying the due date for each claim you intend to raise rather than assuming one single clock covers everything.