Childcare Leave Reform to Benefit Employees with Children

Hungary Today 2023.11.23.

In future, employers will have to grant additional leave for children at the employee’s request. If parliament votes in favor of the proposal, parents will be able to take many more days off instead of just seven days a year, reports Mandiner.

Parliament could soon decide on a change that will benefit employees with children. An amendment to the Labor Code would allow employees to decide for themselves when to take the additional leave for children. The employer would be obliged to grant the additional leave for children on the date specified by the employee. However, the rule would remain that the employer may postpone the granting of the additional leave by a maximum of sixty days or interrupt the leave if there is an exceptional important economic interest or a reason that directly and seriously affects the employer’s business.

Currently, the law provides for a total of seven days of paid leave, regardless of the number of paid leave days, meaning that the employer must grant these seven days of leave if the employee requests it. The employer decides when to grant the other days off, according to the law. Although most employers take into account when employees want to take leaves of absence, they are not obliged to do so, except for the seven working days.

If parliament votes in favor of the amendment, employers would also have to grant additional leave for children at the request of employees from 2024.

The proposal is welcomed by the Confederation of Workers’ Councils (MOSz). Imre Szilárd Szabó, executive vice-president of the confederation and employment lawyer, recalled that the purpose of parental leave is to allow employees to spend more time with their children. It is therefore important that employees can take these days off when they need them.

Fact

On the basis of the Labor Code, the employee’s leave in Hungary consists of basic leave and various additional leaves. The annual paid basic leave is at least 20 days, but this number increases with age or other entitlements. The lowest number of days of leave applies to healthy, childless employees between the ages of 18 and 24. However, the law also allows employers to grant their employees more leaves. In this case, the duration of the leave can be gradually increased depending on the length of the employment relationship. Employees are entitled to parental leave from the year in which the child is born, and for the last time in the year in which the child reaches the age of 16.

In accordance with the Labor Code, an employee is entitled to

two days of additional leave for one child
four days for two children
a total of seven days for more than two children.

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Via Mandiner, Featured image: Pixabay