Labor ministry sees employment support package approved till Sun

MOSCOW, Mar 15 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Labor and Social Protection Ministry expects the first package of measures to support employment to be approved until the end of this week, Minister Anton Kotyakov told reporters on Tuesday.

“We plan to approve the first package of measures in the employment sphere until the end of this week, and it will focus on support of employment of citizens and support of companies that would have to rebuild their work,” he said.

The ministry is monitoring the condition of the labor market daily, and it sees that many companies that suspended operations in Russia are taking a pause in order to rebuild the production and logistics chains, he said.

A spokesperson for the ministry said that the Labor Code guarantees payment of employee’s wages even if a company takes a pause in operations. If a company suspends operations due to objective reasons like problems with supplies of goods or component parts, then workers should get two thirds of a fixed salary, and if a company suspends operations on its own volition, the employer has to pay two thirds of actual wages per month.

If a company decided to cut staff, it has to notify employees at least two months in advance, and if the staff cut is massive, then the notification should come three months in advance.

Employers are prohibited from firing pregnant women, women with children under three years of age, single mothers of children under 14 years of age or disabled children under 18 years of age, sole providers of families with children under three years of age, and people that have three or more children if the other parent in the family has no job, the spokesperson said.

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