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An amendment to Romania’s Labour Code, which clarifies the provisions regarding weekly rest periods, has now come into force. The Labour Code now states that employees are entitled to a weekly rest period of 48 consecutive hours, usually Saturday and

In France, the draft law on growth and activity, known as the ‘Macron Law’, has been passed by the Senate. The draft law that was approved is much changed from the version that first arrived with the Senate. On May

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has held that the definition of collective redundancy used in Spanish legislation is contrary to EU law. This is because it uses ‘undertaking’ instead of ‘establishment’ as the only reference unit for determining whether

Taking a significant step towards overhauling its child labour laws, the government of India has approved a ban on the employment of children below the age of 14. If approved by parliament, an employer who is found to be acting

Romania’s highest court, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, recently ruled that treating certain employees more favourably than other employees in response to a court ruling does not amount to discrimination. In this case, certain drivers of a company

After months of negotiations, employers and trade unions in Spain have come to a preliminary agreement on wages. The country’s two largest trade unions, CCOO and UGT, and employer organisations CEOE and CEPYME, agreed to a wage increase of 1%

According to the UK Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT), time spent by trade union representatives attending trade union meetings at the workplace does count towards working time for the purposes of the Working Time Regulations. As such, employees attending these meetings

Companies in Kuwait wishing to hire foreign workers are now required to have a 250 Kuwaiti dinar bank guarantee. Under the new rules, employers must make a deposit of 250 Kuwaiti dinars (828 US dollars) in a bank account and

The national minimum wage in Venezuela is currently undergoing a 30% increase. On May 1st the minimum wage increased by 20% to 6,746.98 bolivars (1,063 US dollars) per month. On July 1st the rate will increase by the remaining 10%,

Australia’s Fair Work Commission recently considered whether an employer was entitled to make their employees undertake mandatory health assessments.

In light of a high injury rate, the employer in question had decided to establish a mandatory risk review programme. This

The United Arab Emirates has entered into a historic Schengen visa-waiver deal with the European Union. As a result, citizens of the UAE are now entitled to travel to 34 European countries for stays of up to 90 days within

In 2014, 14% of all employees in the European Union were engaged on fixed-term employment contracts, according to a labour force survey published by Eurostat. The countries with the highest proportion of fixed-term workers were Poland (28.4%), Spain (24%), the

Mandatory annual employee stress checks are to be introduced in Japan as part of reforms to the Occupational Health and Safety Law.

Under the planned reforms, all employers with at least 50 regular workers would have to perform stress checks

According to the Federal Statistical Office, in 2014 the average cost of labour in Germany was 31.80 euros per hour. Based on these statistics, Germany has the 8th highest labour costs in the EU. As regards the manufacturing industry specifically,

Plans to increase the length of maternity leave from 12 to 15 months in the case of multiple births have been approved by the parliament of Macedonia. These plans will not affect the length of maternity leave in the case