Dimitriu, Raluca

In order to encourage the birth rate to rise in Romania, the government had abolished the ceiling on the child-rearing allowance. However, recently, in order to combat unfairness and align with European models, the government has recently moved to re-introduce the cap.

Legislative changes in labour relations, social protection, undeclared work, the rights of people with disabilities, childcare provision and pensions points, and protests over salaries and working conditions are the main topics of interest in this article. This country update reports on the latest developments in working life in Romania in the third quarter of 2017.

Protests and strikes, the transposition of European directives on labour relations, a wage policy to encourage some workers and attempts to improve some public sector salaries are the main topics of interest in this article. This country update reports on the latest developments in working life in Romania in the third quarter of 2016.​

This topical update on the protection of whistle-blowers in the EU mainly covers developments that have taken place in the years 2013–2016. The update covers international, European and national level legislation, and includes two case studies on the protection for whistle-blowers in Ireland and Slovakia.

Changing the rules on the termination of employment, as recently observed in many European countries, aims to ease the transition from one job to another, simplify dismissal procedures, transpose the recent ECJ decisions in the field of collective dismissal and to take action against ageing of the working population. This update is a synthesis of developments that occurred during 2015.

Law no. 167/2014 on the professional status of nannies, which was adopted in December 2014, aims to improve the overall quality of childcare provided, to address the problem of insufficient childcare provision for parents, to result in a better work–life balance for parents, to increase the number of jobs in the field and to reduce the level of undeclared work among this category of domestic workers.

Undeclared work has been a major issue in Romania for many years. One of the latest laws to try to tackle it has reduced social security contributions by five percentage points. Social partners cannot agree whether this will have the desired effect; some suggest that reducing VAT may have been a better solution.

Vacation vouchers, which public sector employees had been expected to get in 2014, will now be available from 2015. The vouchers can be used to purchase domestic holidays worth up to RON 5,400 per fiscal year (€1,219 as at December 3, 2014). The social partners see these vouchers as useful in developing Romanian tourism.