Maternity leave and annual leave: What does the Labor Code mandate?

The American Chamber of Commerce in Albania and its Labor and Ethics Committee organized a training session for AmCham members to explain how to best interpret the Labor Code when dealing with employees’ annual leave, maternity leave or adoption procedures — all of which have provisions set in the Code.

The training was provided by two attorneys from Deloitte Albania, Ms. Aidi Milo and  Ms. Edita Poro, and focused on issues such as dealing with maternity leave as well as the similarities and differences when dealing with an adoption process, taking a look at how the calculations are done based on the law.

The training session explained in detail how many days off are the right of a woman when she takes maternity leave, and if she wants to take all the allowed days in the Labor Code, which are 365 days in total, or 390 for women who have more than one child. Members found the explanation of how payments are calculated through social security for employment days quite interesting.

Paid annual leave and the concept of the law that mandates how the leave is applied were also addressed at the training. A part of the session that drew a lot of discussion related to Article 93 of the Labor Code, which specifies: “Annual leave must be granted during the working year until the end of the last quarter of the following year, but it must never be less than one uninterrupted calendar week.”

The idea is that very often employees request to take annual leave for less than one calendar week. This happens because either they want to take care of personal issues or leveraging this paid leave for bridging between public holidays and weekends or for longer weekends based on their needs. This is against the above mentioned provision of the labor code and Employers are faced with fines imposed by the Labor Inspectorate.

The Labor Code does not foresee any other type of paid leave for personal obligations or urgent cases as is predicted in the Legislation of Kosovo Labor Law for example in the case of Blood Donation. This obliges employees to submit requests to their Employers for days-off deducted from their own annual accrued paid leave days, otherwise they would have to take this as an unpaid leave.

There are also cases that international companies, based on their incentive packages and internal policies, grant some extra days of paid leave to employees for urgent cases but this remains at the discretion of the companies.

The Employer has the legal obligation to record the annual paid leave days in the employees’ register as stipulated in the labor code. In case the Labor Inspectorate, during their inspection process of the Employer, identifies/finds out  that in the employee’s register records employee paid leave days of less than one  uninterrupted calendar week (or less than 5 consecutive working days), the employer is subject to administrative penalties (fines) even though the leave might have been granted upon employee is  request.

Maternity Leave/Parental Leave

Pregnant women are not allowed to work:

• 35 days before giving birth to a child – this period is prolonged to 60 days when the pregnant is bearing more than one child and
• 63 days after giving birth to a child.

After the 63 days the woman shall decide on her own if she shall continue work or maternity leave. Should she decide to return to work, until the child is one year old she will benefit from:

• A paid 2 hours break or
• Reduced working hours, with a salary paid as if she works 8 hours.

In case the woman decides to continue benefitting from social security payments:

• Total maternity leave days are 365
• Total maternity leave for more than one child is 390 days.

The husband/partner has the right to 3 paid vacation days for one child, when the child is born.

Maternity leave

Payment is settled by ISSH and calculations are as below:

• 80% of the daily average of the estimated net base of the last twelve months starting from the rightful birth date for the duration before birth and for 150 calendared days after birth.
• 50% of the daily average of the estimated net base of the last twelve months from the rightful date of birth to payment for the next continuing period.
• In order to profit the maternity leave payment after the first 63 days period, the woman should have paid social security for at least 12 months.
• After the 63 days period, the right to childcare is also valid for the father/ legal guardian if this right under any circumstances cannot be carried out by the mother.

Adoption Leave

In case of newborn child adoption (up to 1 year old), the employee has the right to leave as follows:

• Adoption leave can be provided only to one of the parents, adopting mother/father.
• Adoption leave given to adopter is up to 330 days starting from the birthday.
• Minimum of 28 days.

Special protection for women

It is a special focus of the Labor Code the protection of the women during pregnancy and with children.

• Adaption to work environment  (act. 104);
• Break every 3 hours not less than 30 minutes (act. 54);
• Cargo transportation is not allowed (act. 55);
• Cannot be forced to work night shifts (act. 80)
• Not allowed to work overtime (act. 90);
• Not allowed to take over dangerous jobs (act. 104);

Practice Problematics

• Termination of work relations during pregnancy and maternity leave is not allowed;
• Maternity leave is calculated for the tenure/seniority at work with the employer;
• Annual leave is accumulated during maternity leave.

Parental Leave

• Law changes as of 2015;
• Change on maternity leave payment calculation;
• Unpaid vacations;
• Not less than 4 months;
• Can be divided but not less than one week in a year.

Paternal Leave Conditions

• Until the child is 6 years old;
• This leave is lawful to employees working for more than one year at the same employer;
• In case of adoption parental leave can be granted within 6 years, but not after the child has reached the age of 12;
• For all the above is necessary prior notice and agreement with the employer.

Taking care of dependent children

• In case of necessary taking care of dependent children the employee has the right to benefit – 12 days of leave (paid leave);
• For parents with children up to 3 years, in case of illnesses (medical report) – 15 days (paid leave);
• Leave is granted to the spouse that effectively takes care of the child.
• Leave is transferrable

Legal Base

• Law No. 7961, date 12.7.1995 “Labor Code of the Republic of Albania”, adjusted;
• Law No. 7703, date 11.05.1993 “For Social Securities for the Republic of Albania” adjusted;
• Decision of the Ministries Council no. 634,  date 15.7.2015 “For regulations approvals” “For presenting of measures for security and health in work environments for pregnant women and new mothers”;
• Decisions of the Ministries Council no. 207, date 09.05.2020 “For specification of difficult or dangerous jobs”, adjusted.