Private companies in Romania can still pay their employees bonuses instead of operating permanent gross wage increases by March 31, 2018. After this date, employers will have to register addenda to their employees’ labor contracts with the new gross salaries after the social contribution transfer, labor minister Lia Olguta Vasilescu said on Monday, according to local Agerpres.

The Government decided last year, by emergency ordinance, to transfer all social contributions from employers to employees. This important change, which became effective on January 1, 2018, created some confusion in the local business environment.

Companies had to increase the gross salaries of their employees with the value of the social contributions so that the net salaries wouldn’t drop. This hasn’t led to higher costs for companies, but some companies didn’t increase their employees’ gross salaries and preferred to pay them the difference as bonuses, expecting that the Parliament might change the provisions of the emergency ordinance.

“Whoever is expecting this ordinance to fall in the Parliament is wrong. It can’t all and there’s no way we return to the situation we had last year,” the labor minister said.

She added that most private companies maintained their employees’ net salaries after the social contribution transfer although some unions and business organizations said at the beginning of this year that some 2 million employees may get lower wages.

Romania’s labor minister says no statistic shows 2 mln employees have lower wages

editor@romania-insider.com