For each job you asked for approval for 6 years, you can now work in the public sector with only one condition.

Photo: Alo! / Dejan Briza

If the law on amendments to the Budget System Law is approved in parliament, state companies and institutions will be able to hire new employees without government approval, but the number of workers hired may not exceed 70% of the number. the company or institution terminated its employment relationship in the previous calendar year.

To exceed this limit, the approval of a special body of the Government of Serbia must be obtained, with the opinion previously obtained from the Ministry.

Employment will be possible if the user of public funds has secured funds for salaries, that is, salaries, with the corresponding taxes and contributions for new employees, and must be harmonized with the procedures provided by special regulations.

What sector do you work in?

The new rules on employment in the public sector should be valid for three years.

“The problem in Serbia is that we do not have a central registry of civil service employees for more than a decade. We have unreliable information and we do not know the exact structure of those half a million people who work in public administration. Under such conditions , you cannot make a proper employment policy. Nor the policy of salary grades, so their implementation is so late and they will probably not be adopted in the end, “Nikola Altiparmakov, member of the Fiscal Council, told Blic Biznis.

Remember that the employment ban was especially problematic in health care, which was lifted by force due to the crisis with the pandemic, and estimates that in this situation you can choose between two evils: “spontaneous unemployment or spontaneous admission of people, but you can’t do anything in a systematic way. ” .

“The EU gave 10 million euros to the World Bank to carry out studies in which sectors we have surpluses, and in some we have deficits. That is why it was necessary to fire somewhere and hire somewhere. Unfortunately, we never did those studies that were done 3-4 years ago. vi ”, concludes our interlocutor.

Only 10% of employees work part time

The bill establishes that as of January 1, the total number of temporary employees (excluding apprentices) hired on the basis of employment contracts, temporary and occasional jobs, through youth and student cooperatives or temporary work agencies with users of public funds, may not exceed 10 percent of the total number of employees hired indefinitely. The exception will be valid only if there is the consent of the Government of Serbia.

The restriction does not include employees who are replaced, or who are employed through the National Employment Service, through public works, for the purpose of additional education or training. Likewise, employees in the realization of projects financed by the European Union or donations are an exception.

Who doesn’t have to worry

These restrictions do not apply to judges, prosecutors and deputy prosecutors, teaching staff of higher education institutions, as well as directors of public companies.

The Committee of the National Assembly in charge of administrative affairs and budgetary matters.

The employment ban is valid for one more month

Photo: Shutterstock

At the end of last year, 69,565 people worked in public companies and capital companies that carry out activities of general interest, which were founded by the state, which is almost 10,000 less than at the end of 2014. The law that determined the maximum number of employees and that it was approved in late 2013 went down in history a year ago, but the state decided to continue the employment under the old rule.

That is why employment continued to be approved by the Government Commission and the Budget System Law was approved, which extended the ban on employment in the public sector until the end of 2020.

The Fiscal Council warned of the consequences

While it was announced late last year that the law on the maximum number of employees would be repealed after five years, the civil service would continue to be employed in the same way in 2020, if approved by the government approval commission.

According to the Fiscal Council’s calculations, the reason was that the planned too high salary increase (on average 9.6 percent) did not leave room for new jobs in the state sector. That is, all the salary money should have been spent on higher salaries for people already employed.

The Fiscal Council has repeatedly warned the Government of Serbia that the ban on employment and the unplanned reduction in the number of employees has had serious negative consequences on the work and quality of public sector services. The number of full-time employees was declining and part of the outgoing workers was being compensated with indirect jobs.

For this reason, a large number of users of the budget functioned with a lack of personnel in relation to the limits allowed by law, and it became increasingly difficult for state bodies to carry out their usual powers, said the Fiscal Council.