Romania New changes in the Labour Code targeting undeclared employment

In a continuous effort to further reduce undeclared employment, a new law has introduced a series of changes into the Labour Code. New rules on the registration of the individual employment agreement and new sanctions on disregarding the rules imposed by the Labor Code were introduced.

In July 2017 the term of undeclared employment was first introduced into the Labour Code and the notion was regulated. Law no. 88/2018 that was enforced in April and introduces new rules on the registration of the individual employment agreements that is mandatory and has to be made prior to the commencement of the activity, meaning that all individual employment agreements have to predate the commencement of the activity. Disregarding this rule is punishable by administrative fine of approximately 4.350 Euro for each employee that is received to perform activity without the existence of a prior individual employment agreement, but no more than 43.500 Euro for all the irregularities that are found by the labour inspectors. A copy of the individual employment agreements has to be kept at the employee’s workplace in order to verify the date of the agreement. The employer has to keep an accurate registration of the working hours for all employees, including the mobile ones and the ones that are subject to the new teleworking law.