Estonian employment law changes in 2022

Today we write about changes to the Employment Law Act of Estonia which are in effect already from August 2022. These amendments were made as a result of transposing the EU directive on Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions.

While there are compulsory conditions that need to be mentioned in the employment agreement, not all applicable conditions need to be listed in the agreement. Other important aspects can be stated directly in the law or also be written in some internal documents of the employer. The obligation to notify the employee about all applicable working conditions has thus expanded by the amendments to the law.

Here are the compulsory additional things the employer needs to notify the employee at the start of the employment:

• The offered or expected training to the employee. Sometimes training is compulsory and sometimes employees are offered different training or possibility to learn new skills - the employer needs to notify about the expectations and options;

• The exact term and other conditions of the probation period (4 months maximum by law);

• The information about paid vacation time;

• The information about the conditions and reimbursement of overtime work;

• The information about termination of employment. Before the employer needed to notify about the deadlines of termination. Now the employer needs to notify about the formal requirements of termination and the need to justify it/present concrete grounds for it. Also they need to notify about the conditions of terminating the employment during probation time;

• Additionally the employer now needs to inform to which institution the salary taxes are paid to and what are the benefits deriving from the paid taxes;

• The term for informing about changes to working conditions is now set as "on the day of enacting the changes". This does not apply to the conditions the parties have mutually agreed in the agreement and can only be changed by mutual agreement (such as salary);

• The employee is allowed to have a different job outside the working hours as long as it does not affect the performance of work. The agreement on non-competing is also still allowed;

• The employee can demand appropriate working conditions - such as changing part-time work to full-time work or employment with term to employment without a term.

If you need help making amendments to employment agreements or reviewing agreements, please contact us at info@expatlegalestonia.com .