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More paternity leave days, parental and caregiver leave, and free training are part of the employment package recently submitted by the Ministry of Technology and Industry to the Hungarian Parliament, Magyar Nemzet, a Hungarian news site reported.
After consultation with the relevant social partners, the government submitted the amendments to the Labor Code to parliament. The transposition into national law of the directive on work-life balance could double the number of days of paternity leave.
This means that the fathers concerned will have 10 working days paternity leave after the birth of their child.
In addition, the legislation would give workers 44 working days of parental leave up to the age of three.
The draft law also provides for the transposition of a carer’s leave. It allows a person whose relative or a person living in the same household who needs care for serious health reasons to be exempt from the obligation to be available and work for up to five working days.
Another newly introduced provision may be that parents with young children may request a change of place of work and working hours, or choose telecommuting or part-time work up to the age of eight of their child, in order to ensure more flexible working conditions to care for their family.
With the transposition of the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive, employers will have to provide more detailed information with shorter deadlines. To make work more predictable, the package also includes a provision that previously agreed upon working hours can only be changed by collective agreement 48 hours before the start of work at the latest.
The increase in the number of paternity leave days has been a long-standing issue, as an EU directive of 2019 had already foreseen that the five-day paternity leave previously applicable in Hungary should be increased to ten days. This should have been officially transposed into Hungarian law by August 2, and several opposition politicians have pointed out the shortcoming.
According to the Ministry of Technology and Industry, if the bill is passed by parliament, the new provisions could come into effect from January 1, 2023.
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