THE SLOVAK PARLIAMENT APPROVED THE FIRST MEASURES TO SUPPORT EMPLOYERS DUE TO COVID-19 On Wednesday, March 25th The Parliament of the Slovak Republic adopted in a shortened legislative procedure the amendment to the Act on Social Insurance, which amends also the Employment Services Act. The amendments are related to employees' entitlements to the method, duration of payments and amount of nursing and sick pay, as well as to support for job retention.The employee's entitlement to sick pay will be covered by the Social Insurance Agency from the first day of temporary incapacity caused by compulsory quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19. The sick pay will amount to 55% of the daily assessment base. So far, it was employers´ duty to cover the sick pay during the first 10 days of incapacity, whilst during the first 3 days it was equal to 25% of the employee's daily assessment base.As well, it is been proposed to extend the period of payments for nursing a child from the age of 10 years of the child to 11 years or up to 18 years of age for children with long-term adverse health conditions. At the same time, the length of the payments for nursing will be adjusted originally from ten days, respectively twenty days, until the end of the whole period of quarantine, isolation or closure of school and pre-school facilities and will amount to 55% of the daily assessment base. Parents will have the possiblity to alternate during the nursing.The measures also amends the Employment Services Act, which aims to extend active labor market tools to support projects maintaining job positions in Slovakia. These measures will mainly affect employers, respectively self-employed persons who will maintain jobs in the times of COVID-19 emergency. The emergency situation caused by COVID-19 in this case means obligation to suspend or limit operational activities based on the resolution of the Crisis Staff, health protection of employees, decrease of sales and orders, or outage of subcontractors.Minister of Labor, Social Affairs and Family of the SR Milan Krajniak declared at the press conference after the government meeting that the support for job retention refers to contributions for employees' salaries and in case of self-employed persons for minimum contributions and lost income during the emergency time period caused by Covid-19 and specified number of the following months. Contributions will be eligible in case the conditions determined by the Slovak Government are met, and will be paid from the European Social Fund or the state budget of the SR.
