Labor Minister Alen Ružić has signed an agreement with civil service unions that increases annual leave bonuses based on performance ratings. Top-performing employees will soon be able to enjoy up to 35 days off per year.
Labor Minister Alen Ružić has signed an agreement with civil service unions, under which employees rated as excellent will now receive five additional days of annual leave, up from the previous three. The agreement also introduces new amounts for lower performance ratings, and according to the government's decision explanation, the base number of days off for the rest of the employees remains unchanged.
The system of rewarding employees with days off, according to the new agreement, is based on performance ratings. Employees whose work is rated as excellent will receive five extra days of annual leave, those rated as particularly successful will get four additional days, and those rated as successful will receive three extra days. Previously, these amounts were significantly more modest: three days for excellent, two for particularly successful, and one day for successful employees. This represents nearly a doubling of the previous bonuses for all three rating levels.
According to the Collective Agreement for Civil Servants and Employees, annual leave is formed by combining a base number of days with a series of bonuses. The base is 20 working days, to which days are added based on criteria such as length of service, job complexity, educational level, and special working conditions. Social criteria, such as parenthood or disability, are also taken into account. In practice, according to data from sources cited by Novi list, most civil servants have between 25 and 30 working days of annual leave. The previous maximum under the current collective agreement was 30 working days, and the new agreement raises this maximum to 35 working days for those who accumulate all bonuses, including the new reward for excellence.
The agreement on days off does not arise in a vacuum. Simultaneously, negotiations are underway at Ružić's ministry regarding wages and material conditions for civil service employees for 2027. According to Novi list, it has already been clearly communicated in these negotiations that significant wage growth is hard to expect, given that this year's increase was only three percent. In this context, the agreement on additional days off can also be interpreted as a concession to unions in negotiations where the financial room for wage increases remains limited.
For employees who receive positive ratings, the change is concrete and measurable. Someone who previously received three extra days for an excellent rating will now receive five, which is a difference of two working weeks on an annual basis compared to the previous situation. According to available information, unions considered the previous number of extra days too low, and this became one of the main topics in the negotiation process. For most employees whose work is not specially rated, the number of days off remains unchanged, because the agreement, as stated in the government's decision explanation, largely does not alter the scope of already acquired rights.
Signing this agreement is just one step in the broader process of negotiating working conditions in civil services. Key negotiations on wages for 2027 are still ahead for the ministry and unions. Whether the outcome of these negotiations will be better than this year's three percent increase is not yet known, but unions have fresh experience that progress can be made in the negotiation process, even if it is expressed in days off rather than euros in the bank account.
