Belgium federal government agreed on a labour deal

Last night, the Belgium federal government agreed on a labour deal which contains a number of measures providing more flexibility at the labour market that aim at ensuring that Belgium achieves an 80% work force participation rate by 2030.

The job deal is based on four pillars, which will be further clarified below.

Kindly note that these principles must still be implemented in legislation. During the legislative process, the social partners will also be consulted. This can have an important impact on the content and modalities of the new legal framework.

1. More flexibility at work

The new measures must ensure a better work- life balance of employees.

• In this context, employees will have the possibility to perform their fulltime weekly working time during four days per week instead of five days per week.
• For this, it will be possible that an employee works nine,five hours per day in order to achieve a weekly working time of 38 hours. For companies where the weekly working time is set at 40 hours, an employee will have to be able to work 10 hours per day. To implement such a system with working days of 10 hours, a collective bargaining agreement is required.
• In addition, employees will also be able to opt for a variable weekly working time. Meaning that the employee will working more one week, and having more time off the following week.

In this regard, the above flexible regimes can be introduced at the written request of the employee and will be applicable for a period of six months (upon renewal). Note that the employer is not obliged to accept the request of the employee to work in one of the above mentioned flexible regimes, but he will have to motivate his refusal.

In addition, working schedules for employees with a variable working schedule will have to be notified to employees within seven working days. According to the current Belgian legislation, the notification of the working schedules to the employees with an irregular working schedule is set at five working days in advance. In this regard, the federal government wants employees to be able to get an overview of their work schedules sooner.

2. Stimulating individual training and monitoring innovation

Investing more in training for employees is a second important pillar of the government's plan.

• As of this year (2022), every employee is entitled to at least three training days per year, in 2023 this number must be increased to four training days per year, and in 2024 to five per year.
• In addition, every company with at least 20 employees must draw up an individual training plan for its employees.

3. More dynamics in changing jobs

As the statutory notice periods in Belgium can be rather lengthy (especially for employees with a long tenure within a company), the government has adjusted the regulations concerning notice periods. In particular, it would be made possible for employees to transfer to another employer already during the notice period. For this purpose, a compensation arrangement has to be worked out between the old and new employer.

In addition, for older employees, the last third of the notice period can be converted into a training or outplacement.

4. Updating the labour market to digital developments

In order to respond to the rapidly evolving digital labour market, the government also guarantees the right to disconnection. Employers will no longer be allowed to expect employees to read or answer messages or e-mails outside their working hours. The rule applies to companies with 20 or more employees.

The main bottleneck of the job deal was the regulation of the platform economy (ie the sector of companies like Deliveroo or Uber). The federal government wants to improve the working conditions of staff working in that sector, but for a long time there has been a discussion on their status (ie self-employed persons /employees). Now, the government has laid down eight criteria to determine who can be considered self-employed and who can be considered an employee. In case of a dispute, a judge can use these criteria as a basis in order to make a decision. These persons social protection would therefore be determined by that status (ie self-employed/employee). In additional, these so-called "platform workers" would also receive a more protective work accident insurance.

For the e-commerce sector, the rules for working between 8 p.m. and midnight have been made somewhat more flexible. When one trade union agrees to work at night, this is allowed (read: a single trade union can no longer give a veto), provided that the necessary premiums or overtime pay is paid to the employees. In addition, pilot projects can be introduced in the coming year and a half, that would allow let employees to work between 8 p.m. and midnight (night work) in the e-commerce sector without the consent of a trade union.

5. Miscellaneous

In order to allow as many available employees as possible to find work, the government also wants to monitor the situation regarding diversity and discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, the Federal Public Service Employment will follow up the data on diversity more closely sector by sector. If there are striking differences between the figures within a sector and those within a specific company, the company will have to submit an action plan to remedy the situation.

Furthermore, every two years, the social partners will have to indicate per sector (i) where the bottleneck professions are, (ii) what are the reasons for the existence of such bottleneck professions and (iii) what possible measures can be taken to reduce these. Also, the different governments in Belgium will cooperate more closely to be able to implement those measures.