The government has adopted a draft-proposal on amending the Law on Employment offering further benefits for employers, i.e. offering them the opportunity to hire staff to substitute working mothers who are on maternity leave while at the same time being exempted from paying mandatory social insurance contributions during the 9-month leave.

This was announced Wednesday at a press conference held by Deputy PM responsible for economic affairs Vladimir Pesevski and Minister of Labour and Social Policy Dime Spasov saying the measure was part of the Employing Macedonia project, which has created 5,000 jobs since it was introduced for the first time four months ago.

“The measure stipulates that employers should pay the same amount of net salary of the employees on maternity leave to the staff substituting them on the same work place. Once a maternity leave ends, employers are also obligated to keep the new staff in the same work place for at least the same period for which employers have been exempted from paying social insurance contributions,” Deputy PM Pesevski stated.

This bill, he added, provides a kind of guarantee that employees (mothers) on maternity leave can get back to work after their leave is completed.

Calling the measure ‘positive and stimulating’, Minister Spasov said it was intended to reduce any abuses of the right to using maternity leave and stamp out mobbing of pregnant women in the work place.

“Protective mechanisms and measures have also been established to ensure adequate implementation of the law. The state aims to boost birth rate and encourage employers to hire young women, put an end to mobbing cases and pressures on women and their right to take maternity leave,” Spasov elaborated saying the government focused on workers’ rights, i.e. ‘the rights of women when they are pregnant and while on maternity leave.’