Working time

The leadership of the Labor Ministry is considering introducing an "exemption clause" for the obligatory implementation of a sector-specific collective labor contract for companies on the verge of shutting down. It is possible that such a regulation will be included in the draft law for investment incentives to be tabled in Parliament this week.

In Bulgaria, 41% of workers say working time is not in line with family and social commitments. On average, for the EU this share is about 22%. This is due to the fact that the different forms of employment are not widely spread in Bulgaria.

According to Art. 228a of the Labor Code, the employer is obliged to provide conditions for maintaining and improving the professional qualification of its employees. According to a survey conducted by the Center for Vocationally trained Net IT, over 82% of people have no idea about it.

Six out of 10 Romanians, namely 63 percent want to have their own business, the percentage being significantly higher among men (72 percent), 18-23 year old youth (77 percent) and adults aged between 24 and 38 (75 percent), according to a study carried out by a market research company. The data were collected in January this year and are representative at urban level.

For the tenth consecutive year, Bulgaria is the last in the European Union in pay of overtime work. In 2018 an average of 5.5 euros was paid for an extra hour of work, according to data from the European Statistics Agency Eurostat.

One in two private sector workers collects a gross salary of up to 800 euros a month, while 422,150 employees, or 22.13 percent of all 1,907,945 registered in the Labor Ministry's Ergani database in October, work part-time or shifts for less than 500 euros a month.

In 2017, in the European Union (EU), there were more than 228 million employed people, and about 33 million of them were self-employed.

The management and the employees' union at Greek railway operator Trainose reached an agreement at Monday's meeting to sign a new collective labor contract that has averted a 24-hour strike the unionists had been threatening this Thursday.

The two sides reached a compromise solution on working hours.

Jailed November 17 hitman Dimitris Koufodinas, who received 11 life sentences and was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment for his involvement in the terror group, has received a fourth 48-hour furlough.

Kathimerini understands that the prison disciplinary board approved his furlough application on Monday as it was deemed to meet the requirements of the law.

Members of the self-styled anarchist group Rouvikonas walked into the Austrian embassy in Athens on Friday to protest the approval of a 12-hour working day by lawmakers in Vienna.

After they threw flyers, the members of the group left the building.