Romania’s Government is preparing a mechanism to send state employees into technical unemployment for limited periods of time during the state of emergency determined by the new coronavirus (COVID-19), prime minister Ludovic Orban announced on Wednesday evening, April 9, at B1 TV.

Through this mechanism, about half of the employees in state institutions will go to work for 15 days while the other half will stay at home and get only 75% of their base salaries. After 15 days, they will switch places, the PM explained.

However, he explained that this mechanism can’t be applied in all areas of the public sector because some of them need their full personnel and even more. Thus, the healthcare sector, the public security sector (police, gendarmes, firefighters, military) and even the social assistance sector will be exempted, according to Orban.

“In other public sectors, we have thought of a mechanism, which we will introduce through a regulation, aimed at avoiding the risk of spreading the virus. A relatively simple mechanism, in which we divide the employees into two equal parts, each party being able to maintain the functionality of the public institution in which they work. Half of the employees work for 15 days, and for another 15 days they will be in a form of technical unemployment - paid the same as those in technical unemployment, with 75%,” PM Orban explained.

He added that this measure will ensure the functioning of public institutions while observing the social distancing restrictions to prevent the spreading of the new coronavirus (COVID-19).

The prime minister’s announcement comes after many voices in the business sector have been asking for solidarity in sharing the social costs of the new coronavirus pandemic arguing that employees in the public sector should also share the costs, after more than one million employees in the private sector have been sent at home into technical unemployment because of the COVID-19 restrictions.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Gov.ro)