Tax News HU - Changes in working time regulations

Based on the new amendment to the rules of the banking of working time in the Hungarian Labor Code employers may define banking of working hours unilaterally up to 24 months without the employee’s consent. Before the amendment the banking of working time was limited to 4, and in certain cases to 6 months. This amendment benefits primarily the big producer companies, who can declare the working time lost due to involuntary stop in production because of the corona virus as rest days, and later, when production restarts they can demand from the employee a significant amount of overtime. As the employer initiates using the banking of working time to make up for  involuntary stop in production, this can be done with respect to Paragraphs 104, 106 and 135 section 4 of the Labor Code, meaning that the legally required number of rest days and inter-work resting periods still have to be adhered to. The Government argues that employees will still be in a better position, because they might not lose their jobs even during the time when production is halted, and may receive income for this period as well, and employers in return may reduce their losses from the stop in production by utilizing their employees labour force to a bigger extent.