Bulgarian government has approved Wednesday an amendment to Bulgaria's Labor Code according to which all accrued paid leaves must be used up by the end of 2011.

The accrued paid leaves have become a rather contentious issue for the Bulgarian Cabinet and the trade unions.

It has turned out that many government and business employees have not used their annual paid leaves for years. Thus some of them can now use a paid leave of up to year and a half which is deemed a detriment to the state's economy.

“The newly set deadline of a year and eight months for using up all pending paid leaves gives employers enough time to take the needed actions,” said Wednesday Bulgaria's Minister of Labor and Social Policy Totyo Mladenov.

Once Parliament approves the amendments to Bulgaria's Labor Code, all future paid leaves will have to be used up within the respective year. In case of extreme circumstances, however, employers will be allowed to transfer leaves to the first ten days of the next year

Mladenov added that medical leaves have not been discussed at Wednesday's meeting.

Recently government and the employers decided to reform the scheme of medical leave payments. Thus an employee will receives 100% of their regular daily payment for the first day of their medical leave from the employer. The employer will cover 60% of the second day as well and nothing will be paid for the third day. All remaining days will be covered by the Social Security Institute.

At present, an employee receives 100% of their regular daily payment for the first day of their medical leave from the employer. From the second day onwards, they get 80% but the sum is covered by the Social Security Institute.

The talks over the paid medical leaves from work have been initiated by the Bulgarian government, which wants to amend the Social Security Code in order to curb the violations with the granting of fake medical leaves.

Bulgaria’s syndicates, however, remain firmly opposed to the deal hammered out by the government and business sector for Social Security Code changes.