Promotion of online system for registering seasonal workers
Starting from this year, the employers will able to hire seasonal workers in agriculture electronically, via web portal www.sezonskiradnici.gov.rs. The simplified procedure requires employers to indicate the worker's personal identification number, as well as the type of work performed, whether it involves picking, planting, trimming or other works, and select one or more days of the worker's engagement in the calendar.
There are between 65,000 and 80,000 citizens engaged on seasonal works and the practice has shown that even 95% go unregistered. An agreement in paper form will no longer be necessary, and the procedure will require less than 10 minutes, compared to five hours previously spent for registration based on the agreements on temporary and occasional work engagement. The expenses allocated for taxes and contriubions is three times lower compared to the previous model and it will amount to 300 RSD a day. The new Law and the web portal have been developed in cooperation with NALED and with the support of German Development Cooperation (GIZ) during 2018.
- I would like to express gratitude for the support in adopting one of the key measures of the National Program for Countering Shadow Economy and the realization of an important step towards digitalization of public administration, The new system indicates the Government's commitment towards protecting the workers' rights and creating a functional system for the businesses, a testimony of responsible management of state finance and it stands as a victory for all three sides - said the Prime Minister Ana Brnabić at the presentation, attended by ministers Zoran Đorđević and Branislav Nedimović, the Director of Tax Administration Dragana Marković and the Ambassador of Germany Tomas Schieb.
With the support of GIZ, NALED coordinated the development of the software and web portal for registering seasonal workers, which was handed over to Tax Administration and linked with the CROSO and National Employment Service systems. This will enable NES to create a registry of seasonal workers during 2019 and ease the process of linking employers with persons possessing the required skills.
The workers will be entitled to pension and health insurance in case of occupational injury and will be able (the same as the inspections) to check whether they have been registered, within the web portal, in real time. The seasonal works can be performed by employed or retired persons, minors under the age of 16 (in line with the Labor Law), as well as the unemployed and beneficiaries of social care, while not losing the right to the fee they received previously.
The initiative for reforming the system of registering seasonal workers has been initiated in 2015 by agricultural producers from Srem, together with NALED and then-Mayor of Sremska Mitrovica and now the Minister of Agriculture Branislav Nedimović.
- Following the study tours to Croatia and Hungary, we launched the initiative with the Government and ensured support of GIZ Open Regional Fund for Modernization of Municipal Services for the reform and web portal development. In the following couple of months we will conduct 60 trainings for employers and institutions and support the establishment of service centers in local governments for assisting the farmers in using the platform. Transferring at least a half of the seasonal workers in the legal flows would not only generate 15 million euros of budget revenues, but also represent an encouragement to expand the solution to the fields of construction and tourism – said the President of NALED Managing Board Vladimir Novaković.
