Jurečka proposes next year replace the four previous benefits with one support, namely housing allowance and supplement, child allowance and subsistence allowance. One application should be submitted, and the handling process should also be one.
A condition for obtaining aid from the state is supposed to be work or the search for it. The amount should be higher for the activity, then gradually decrease with increasing income. Applicants’ assets should be reassessed in order to qualify for the benefit. After the government, the law must be approved by parliament and signed by the president.
“It is absolutely necessary for the system to be simplified and at the same time set up in a motivational way,” said Jurečka. According to him, the revision places great emphasis on the evaluation of work activity. “If a person shows at least some basic effort to be active, to work, or at least to be in the register of job applicants, the revision can help people,” he said.
“But if someone who can work coughs up everything, doesn’t want to work, then we say clearly, this benefit revision will mean that a person will not have the kind of security that they have today,” Jurečka added. He offered the president and his team that he could present them with detailed calculations, model examples and concrete impacts of the revision.
Changes in guaranteed wages
However, he also spoke briefly with the president about the pension reform, which is still under discussion, with an internal debate within the coalition. Jurečka expects that the second and third readings will take place in September and October.
At the end of June, the House of Representatives approved the government’s amendment to the Labor Code, which introduces a regular increase in the minimum wage until 2029 so that it corresponds to 47 percent of the average wage. It is now at 41.1 percent and has grown to 18,900 crowns since January. From next year, the guaranteed wages according to expertise, responsibility and demanding work are to apply only to the public sector, not to companies. The amendment could be discussed by the Senate next week.
During the meeting with Pavlo today, Jurečka emphasized that the minimum wage will be determined based on predictions, not old data. “For people, it’s actually a very positive mechanism that significantly helps to increase the minimum level of earnings in the Czech Republic,” he pointed out.
According to another upcoming amendment to the Labor Code, the so-called flexible one, some workers in the Czech Republic could start receiving wages in euros or another currency from next year. Employers should keep parents in their position for two years. The notice period would not start until the beginning of the next month, but immediately after the notice was delivered. It would be shortened to a month if the worker made a mistake. On the other hand, trial periods could be extended. Fourteen-year-olds could start going to part-time jobs during the summer holidays.
