Say No to Illegal Employment campaign begins – One in three workers in Serbia not registered

One in three workers in Serbia is illegally employed, and the labor inspection penalized employers with over RSD 231 million last year due to irregularities, it was said at the presentation of the national campaign Say No to Illegal Employment, as reported on the website of the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy.

Minister Zoran Djordjevic said while presenting the campaign that the Government of the Republic of Serbia aimed to educate its citizens about the benefits of suppressing the grey economy.

– A number of our workers have no paid sick leaves, annual leaves, nor do they have the right to apply for bank loans or any other banking services. During the Say No to Illegal Employment campaign, we will be educating citizens and workers about this problem through the media, as it is not only the state that is losing here, it's workers as well. We all need to fight against illegal employment, which we all know exists, together, both the state and the citizens – Djordjevic said.

– The Labor Inspectorate of the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veteran and Social Policy will carry out a number of extraordinary inspection procedures, as the practice of announcing the inspection two days ahead has shown to be illogical – the minister said.

Djordjevic said that the Government of Serbia also actively dealt with legal procedures, that it had adopted amendments to the Labor Law in December 2017 and that it would also work on the Law on Seasonal Jobs, the Law on Social Entrepreneurship and the Law on Working Abroad and Employment of Foreign Nationals in the next period and announced that a guidebook for workers employed abroad had been prepared, containing information about legal employment abroad.

The acting director of the Labor Inspectorate, Stevan Djurovic, said that, in 2017, the inspection service had carried out 53,424 instances of inspection supervision and determined that 22,411 were illegally employed, an increase by 2,939 compared to 2016.

Arne Sannes Bjornstad, Ambassador of Norway to Serbia, who is helping the Ministry of Labor conduct the action against the grey economy, pointed out that the campaign was an example of good practice and that it showed that the institutions of the Republic of Serbia wanted to motivate citizens to fight against the grey economy.

The president of the Serbian Association of Employers, Milos Nenezic, said that business people supported the campaign against illegal employment and each effort to improve the economic environment.

Senior Partner at the agency for integrated marketing communication Golin Beograd, Ivan Bender, said that he was very pleased that the agency had been recognized as a partner in such an important national project and added that he would advocate for each step in this campaign to be transparent.

Ministarstvo za rad, zapošljavanje, boračka i socijalna pitanja Republike Srbije

Golin d.o.o. Beograd

Unija poslodavaca Srbije Beograd

Ambasada Kraljevine Norveške u Beogradu

Labor Inspectorate

Zoran Djordjevic

countering illegal employment

illegal employment

grey economy

Say No to Illegal Employment

extraordinary inspection control

inspection control

unregistered workers

Arne Sannes Bjornstad

Stevan Djurovic

Milos Nenezic

Law on Seasonal Jobs

Law on Social Entrepreneurship

Law on Working Abroad and Employment of Foreign Nationals

Ivan Bender