New Concept of Labor in Serbia

Government officials announced that public debate about a draft bill regarding Employment Agency Law (EAL) has finished and the Bill is expected to be introduced to the Parliament in short notice. If the Law get enacted Serbia will significantly coordinate its labor legislative in accordance with Conventions of International Labor Organization (ILO) and European Union standards.

Although the practice has shown that this kind of employment already exists in reality, through contracts for temporary and occasional jobs, and through youth cooperatives, this area hasn’t been minutely regulated and therefore many agencies for workers lease were operating in gray zone but the most problems had actual workers because they couldn’t exercise their labor rights in full capacity.

A draft bill on Employment Agency Law regulates a new concept of labor, i.e. labor for lease where employers can “rent” workers form specialized agencies which will be authorized for this kind of business and all of them will have permits issued by Ministry in charge.

Under this Law, the employers will be able to get workers on lease form these specialized agencies for a temporary period of time, and employees, for that period, will be employed in the agencies but sent to employers for work. Employer’s salary and all other labor earnings will be paid by the agency.

The employer will be able to lease up to 10% of employees comparing the total number of current employees employed with an employer to whom the employees are leased.  Only in specific cases this number can be increased up to 30% but only with Ministry approval which must be obtained by the employer.

This kind of employment will provide stronger protection of the employees leased by the agency and it will assure their labor rights, unlike the situation when the workers are engaged through temporary and occasional jobs contracts. These employees shall have the same work conditions and equal treatment as the other employees engaged by the employer.

As well, this will be beneficial for employers because they will able to hire necessary workers in short period of time, it will reduce administrative costs and procedures for hiring new employees and enable easier and quicker fluctuation of the labor force.

It is expected that the AEL Proposal (bill) will be shortly in parliament procedure and enacted with minor changes.