Hungary: amendments to the Labour Code

On 21 December 2022, Act LXXIV, which includes the amendment of Act I of 2012 on the Hungarian Labour Code, effective as of 1 January 2023, was published.
The official purpose was to harmonise Hungarian legislation with EU legislation. Still, it became a broader reform than just the transposition of the Directives on work-life balance and predictable working conditions.

The main changes can be summarised as follows:

Employment contract: the contract can derogate from the mandatory elements of the employment contract, such as place of work, date of employment, and duration of the employment relationship. Wages shall be paid by bank transfer, and parties can only derogate from this main rule by mutual agreement. In the case of fixed-term employment, if the duration is a maximum of 12 months, the probationary period shall be pro-rated. The employer shall provide all the necessary information in writing within seven days from the starting date of the employment relationship, and in case of change, on the date of the change. This information shall also be provided in case of secondments of more than 15 days.

Paternity leave and parental leave: The amendment introduced a parental leave for an employee employed for at least one year before, for 44 working days up to the age of 3 of the child. It also increased the paternity leave to a unified ten working days. Both leaves are granted at the employee’s request and can be postponed by the employer in exceptional cases. The employee can also apply until his child reaches eight years for a change of workplace, change to working hours, teleworking, or part-time, and the employer shall give written reasons for refusing the request within 15 days.

Claims and disputes: Although in exceptional cases, the employer is not obliged to justify dismissal (e.g. during the probationary period), it is now obliged to give reasons if the employee considers that the dismissal is due to time off work for care, paternity leave, parental leave or the taking of unpaid leave to care for a child (or even just the submission of applications to that effect). If the employee requests, the employer has 15 days to justify the dismissal.

Even if there is time to implement the new provisions, employers should start considering how to adapt to comply with the new regulation and be prepared for employees' requests.

We have already reported on other European countries that adopted new legislation to transpose the mentioned European directives, such as Germany, Netherlands, and Slovakia