Back to COVID-19 bussiness support
Law no. 19/2020 regarding the granting of days off work to parents in order to allow them to look after their children in the event of a temporary closure of educational establishments came into force on 17 March 2020. Pre-school educational centers also fall under the category of educational establishments.
The circumstances under which parents can benefit from days off work include severe weather conditions and other extreme situations as declared by the competent authorities.
The number of days off granted to parents is established by Government Decision on an individual basis for each of the above situations. During the present state of emergency, the number of paid days off work granted to parents is equal to the number of working days left until the declared state of emergency comes to an end, including the working days during the established school holidays.
These days off will be granted to parents on the basis of justifying documents and provided the following conditions are cumulatively met:
– they have children of up to 12 years of age, or children with disabilities of up to 18 years of age, enrolled at an educational establishment, and
– their particular job does not allow for homeworking or teleworking.
The definition of parent also includes the sole parent in a single-parent family, the person designated to exercise parental rights over and obligations towards a child, as well as the parent or legal representative of an adult person with disabilities enrolled at an educational establishment.
The provisions of the present Law do not apply if the parent as defined above finds him or herself in one or more of the following situations:
– is on childcare leave;
– is on vacation or unpaid leave;
– is a personal assistant of one of the children taken into care;
– has his/her employment agreement suspended during the temporary interruption of the activity of the employer;
– his/her spouse finds him or herself in any of the aforementioned situations;
– the other parent does not earn income subject to income tax according to the Fiscal Code.
The same provisions also apply under certain conditions to a parent or legal representative of a child with severe disabilities not enrolled at an educational establishment, as well as to a parent or legal representative who has an adult person with severe disability in care.
These days off work are granted based on the submission by one of the parents to his/her employer of an application, accompanied by a copy of the birth certificate(s) of his/her child(ren), as well as an affidavit signed by the other parent (with the exception of single parent families) stating that he/she has not also applied to his/her employer for days off work under the present law and that he/she does not belong to one of the cases that constitute exceptions with respect to the granting of days off work as per the present law.
An employer is obliged to accept and implement an employee’s request, provided that all conditions stipulated under the present law are met.
However, in certain sectors that provide uninterruptible services of public interest the granting of time off is only possible with the agreement of the employer.
The granting of days off work to allow for the supervision of children does not equate to a suspension of individual employment contracts and will not be recorded in the REVISAL system (General Record for Evidence of Employees).
The amount of the allowance granted for each day off is the equivalent of 75% of the salary paid for one working day, but no more than the daily equivalent of 75% of the average gross salary in Romania (RON 5,429 for 2020). The allowance is subject to income tax and social contributions.
The allowance is to be paid first by the employer and the net amount received by the parent will then be reimbursed to the employer subsequently (for the period during which the authorities decide to close educational establishments only) from the Guarantee Fund of the State Budget. Any use of amounts reimbursed from the state budget for purposes other than the payment of personnel costs is a criminal offence.
In order to obtain the reimbursement of amounts paid in the form of allowances, the employer must submit an application with its local unemployment agency, accompanied by justifying documents, as required by law, within 30 day of the date of payment of the contributions and taxes relating to the allowance.
The required documents for the reimbursement of said amounts may be submitted by email, as well as by any other means of communication, and the amounts in question shall be reimbursed to the employers within 60 calendar days of the date of submission of the documents.
Source: Emergency Ordinance no. 41/2020 amending and supplementing Law no. 19/2020 regarding the granting of days off work to parents to supervise their children in the event of a temporary closure of educational establishments published in the Official Gazette no. 282 on April 3rd, 2020.
Last update: 4 May 2020
