Mihai-Gabriel Ciobanu
State Secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection Mihai-Gabriel Ciobanu said that the relevant draft law has already been prepared in draft form with the support of EU experts and is undergoing consultations with representatives of business, civil society and social partners. The document is expected to be sent to the parliament by November this year. The Labor Code and the Contravention Code will be amended.
According to Ciobanu, the current legislation has already been largely brought in line with European norms, but the issues of introducing sanctions for non-compliance with them, as well as the development of mechanisms for defining “labor of equal value” remain unresolved.
“There has already been consultation on 2025. At least the big companies have said they have no more than a 5% difference in wages. They say they have human resource management software that calculates the differences between salaries very easily. However, in general, Moldova still lacks mechanisms to calculate the value of labor,” Ciobanu said at a hearing in Parliament.
The reform considers various approaches used in EU countries, including the Spanish model with collective determination of criteria and the Swiss system based on regression economic analysis. Moldova is currently relying on the expertise of the International Labor Organization, which is developing a function analysis methodology to assist employers.
Another draft amendment to the Labor Code provides for additional guarantees for pregnant women. Among them is a norm according to which the time spent on medical consultations during pregnancy will be considered as working time.
The draft law has already been approved in the country and will be sent to the European Commission in the next two weeks. The reform package will be discussed on April 22 on the Commission’s collective bargaining platform.
