Prepared by Giulia Spalazzi and Valentina Panettella
In the Official Gazette no. 180 of 18 July 2020, Law no. 77 of 17 July 2020, “Conversion into law, with amendments, of Decree-Law no. 34 of 19 May 2020 (so-called D.L. Rilancio), containing urgent measures on health, support for work and the economy, as well as social policies related to the epidemiological emergency by COVID- 19”, has been published.
The Rilancio Decree, therefore, is now law.
The structure and length of the social shock absorbers, provided for by the Rilancio Decree, remain unchanged but a new provision, set forth by the conversion law, allows employers, who have fully benefited from the first fourteen weeks of redundancy fund (also by way of derogation or ordinary allowance) to request an additional four weeks even before September 1, 2020.
The law also provides for two new measures, originally not included in the Rilancio Decree, i.e. the “network contract” and an action to support the employment of young “care leavers”.
Indeed, for the year 2020 article 43-bis provides for the possibility to have recourse to the “network contract” between companies in order to avoid redundancies in those companies of the network facing economic crises, by way of posting and employees sharing within the companies participating into the network. The aims of the network contract include the employment of workers from enterprises participating in the network who are at risk of losing their jobs; the inclusion of individuals who have lost their jobs as a result of business closures or business crises; the hiring of professionals necessary for the relaunch of productive activities in the crisis exit phase. The operating procedures, however, will be defined by a decree of the Labour Minister.
A further new provision is the once concerning the care leavers (art. 67-bis), i.e. those individuals who, at the age of eighteen, live outside their family of origin based on a court order. They are included in the list of beneficiaries of the mandatory hiring which provides for a reserved quota, concerning some particularly fragile categories of individuals, on the number of employees to be hired by public and private employers. The law has, therefore, provided for a “preferred path” for their recruitment, through their inclusion in a special list kept by the targeted employment services.
Finally, among the employment law provisions, it is worth noting that article 93, paragraph 1-bis, provides that fixed-term employment contracts (including supply employment contracts), as well as apprenticeship contracts other than professional apprenticeship contracts, are extended for a duration equivalent to the period in which working activities have been suspended due to the epidemiological emergency by Covid-19.
Therefore, should a fixed-term worker has been laid off for six weeks, the relevant contract will be extended for an equivalent period of time.
This effect occurs automatically and does not depend on the will of the employer, who may not even consider such a postponement of the employment relationship as necessary.
Let’s Talk
For a deeper discussion, please contact:
PwC TLS Avvocati e Commercialisti
Associate Partner
PwC TLS Avvocati e Commercialisti
Senior Manager