Stricter rules for the unemployed

The rules on the registration of job seekers with the labour office will become stricter. If an unemployed person has repeatedly ended an employment contract which was offered via the labour office after less than a month of work, they will be banned from registering again as a job seeker for half a year. This is according to the draft law on employment services passed by the Economic and Social Council. According to the proposed amendment, working by agreement should be limited to 40 days per year. At the moment, people can work by agreement and at the same time be on a labour office register, but their earnings cannot exceed €148.57 per month. Apart from introducing time limits on working by agreement, the Labour Ministry also proposes that jobseekers shouldn't be able to work by agreement for an employer for which they used to work before being added to a labour office register. Moreover, jobseekers will be obliged to submit the work by agreement contract to the labour office one day before their start date. If they fail to do this, they could be removed from the register. The ministry further proposes that the maximum remuneration for working by agreement should remain at €148.57 per month, or 75 percent of the subsistence minimum.