Law no. 234 of December 30, 2021, regarding the “State budget for the financial year 2022 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2022-2024” (the so-called “Budget Law 2022”) was published in the Official Gazette on December 31, 2021.
With regard to social security, the amendments introduced by the 2022 Budget Law refer to periods of suspension or reduction of work activity supplemented by redundancy payments, starting from January 1, 2022.
The system is based on the principle of differentiated universalism, increasing the system’s overall degree of fairness. The need is to combine the system of social welfare programs by integrating it with effective active labor policies.
Therefore, in the reform law, income support interventions are always foreseen with a strong link between active policies and training.
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The above innovations are not, however, applied with reference to requests for support having as their object multi-month periods, straddling the years 2021-2022, in which the reduction/suspension of work activity began during the year 2021, even though it subsequently continued in 2022.
In particular, the Ordinary Wages Guarantee Fund is extended to companies that are not currently covered by this measure or that do not adhere to the bilateral solidarity funds through the Wages Guarantee Fund (FIS).
The Extraordinary Wage Supplementation Fund (CIGS), on the other hand, is granted to all employers who own businesses with more than 15 employees that do not access the funds in question, without any sectoral distinction.
These companies, in addition, will benefit from a 12-month extension of CIGS. The owners will have to define a re-employment and self-employment plan for the employees during the trade union consultation phases, in order not to trigger the forfeiture of the benefit.
Finally, companies that hire a worker on an indefinite-term basis who is on the Special Income Support Fund may receive a monthly contribution of 50 percent of the CIGS amount, for each month’s salary paid to the worker. The support cannot be disbursed for more than 12 months”.