Home » Technology » Amendment to the Labor Code at a glance: Leave leave, part-time work, higher compensation

Amendment to the Labor Code at a glance: Leave leave, part-time work, higher compensation

Both employers and employees expect significant changes from January. Professions with irregular working hours and shorter hours are to be favored, or those who, due to their family, need to reconcile personal life more closely with work.

These measures will be introduced by a three-year amendment to the Labor Code proposed by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. “Changing the code so extensively was politically difficult, the government had to agree with employers and trade unions,” said the head of the department Jana Maláčová (CSSD), adding that the current system is unfair.

Some paragraphs have been in force since June. These are mainly fundamental adjustments to the delivery of documents in labor relations.


Minimum 160 hours of vacation

From the beginning of next year, the holiday will not be taken in days, but in hours. Newly provided for hours worked, not days. It will be associated with weekly working hours and will therefore reflect reduced working hours. The change will be felt especially by those who are employed on different days for different lengths of time. These are, for example, places with so-called short and long weeks or people who change their length of service during the year.

“Some took leave regardless of whether it was days when they were supposed to have twelve-hour or four-hour shifts, which created inequalities,” said Kateřina Brodská from the Ministry of Labor.

On the day of the holiday, when he was supposed to have a twelve-hour shift, the worker will lose 12 hours of holiday next year. And on the day he had worked four hours, four hours would be deducted.


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It will continue to be the case that each employee is entitled to a minimum of four weeks’ leave. The proposal for a five-week paid leave for the business sector did not pass. By law, only people in the public sphere have such a long holiday. The best performers are teachers with eight weeks of paid rest.

For employees who work eight hours a day from Monday to Friday, virtually nothing will change. If they have a set weekly working time of 40 hours and eight-hour shifts, they will use up eight hours per day of leave.

Employees will apply for leave on a specific working day, or for the period “from – to”. “The employer will be able to exceptionally determine the use of leave by the employee with his consent to an extent shorter than the length of the shift, but at least in the length of one half of it,” added Brodská.


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Shared jobs will increase employment

A shared job consists in sharing one position with more part-time workers. “We were inspired by Germany. In order for part-time, flexible jobs to be beneficial for employers and to motivate them to create them, we will prepare subsidies for them, “said Maláčová. However, it has not yet presented the intention in more detail.

Deputy Ministry of Labor for Legislation Petr Hůrka said during the discussion of the amendment to the Labor Code in the Chamber of Deputies that the money could be used for active employment policy, while the new subsidies would match the expenses for administration and acquisition of equipment. This year, Maláčová has 3.2 billion crowns in her budget for employment policy, last year she had 2.25 billion.

The Czechia is one of the countries in the EU with the lowest share of part-time workers and the least employed mothers with small children. According to Eurostat, six percent of people in the Czech Republic had part-time work last year, while the average in the union was 18 percent. It was a fifth in Sweden, 27 percent in Germany and Austria, and 47 percent in the Netherlands.

New calculation of leave in hours

Example 1: An employee with eight hours of work per week works 40 hours. He will be entitled to a minimum of 160 hours of leave per year (four weeks times 40 hours).

Example 2: An employee with six hours a week works 30 hours. He will be entitled to a minimum of 120 hours of leave per year (four weeks times 30 hours).

Example 3: If an employee is not entitled to annual leave but has worked for at least four weeks, he will be entitled to a pro rata share.

Other changes brought by the Code

Deploying shared locations. The principle is that one position is shared by more part-time workers, the measure is to increase the employment of mothers with small children or seniors.

Comparable wages in the EU. The provision in the amendment to the Labor Code on the posting of workers to the EU responds to a European regulation aimed at reducing so-called social dumping in the construction industry, among other things. It is about competing with lower wages.

Easier delivery of documents. Newly, documents sent to employees and employers will be considered delivered after a certain period of time, this is the so-called fiction of delivery. There are no complications with not receiving mail or with the fact that the companies are not located at the address listed in the register.

Administrative relief. Employers will no longer have to issue a comprehensive confirmation of the termination of the performance agreement. Only people with deductions or health insurance will receive it.

More time off to work with children. People working at children’s camps and events for children and young people will be entitled to five days’ paid leave. Compensation for their wages will be calculated at most from the average in the national economy. It will be paid to employers by the state, which will require about 50 million crowns a year.

Higher compensation for death. Survivors and close relatives will receive twelve times the average wage instead of 240,000 crowns for the death of an employee after an accident at work or an occupational disease. Now it would be 720 thousand crowns.

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