Employees in Monaco will be able to have their hours reduced while maintaining full financial support from the State in the government’s latest bid to avoid layoffs due to the Covid crisis.
Alongside the State’s various recovery plans and the maintenance of CTTR temporary unemployment until spring 2021, the government has submitted a bill on the organisation of working hours to the National Council. The aim is “to provide the Principality with a temporary and additional tool to avoid economic layoffs,” said Minister of Social Affairs and Health Didier Gamerdinger during a press conference on Tuesday.
The bill is the result of a broad consultation with businesses since the end of summer.
“Now is the time to mobilise everyone – employers, employees and public authorities, to face the decline in economic activity linked to the health situation and the tensions induced on the labour market,” said the minister. “For the government, this is indeed a social investment. Every job saved is security for a home, a family. This bill allows an employee to keep their job and full remuneration. It allows an employer to maintain their activity by flexibly organising working time without lay-offs.”
In principle, the new working schedule would be negotiated between the employer and the employee, and adapted according to the activity of the company. The employee is guaranteed to receive a full salary regardless of hours worked, while the employer agrees not to dismiss employees affected by the working time arrangement during the period of the agreement – between one and 12 months maximum.
After a vote by the National Council, the government expects the first working agreements to be reached by January at the latest. “We are in a time of economic emergency. Now is the time to save our jobs,” concluded Didier Gamerdinger.