Guide to employing in Serbia
Ranked 64th on the human development index, Serbia is an upper-middle-income economy that provides universal healthcare and free education to its citizens, powered by strong agriculture, petroleum, and IT industries.
We offer nearshoring and management services for hiring top software development talent in Serbia. We are located in Novi Sad a second largest city and the administrative capital of Serbia’s northern province Vojvodina.
Serbians make great candidates in the information technology sector and experts in software development.
Serbians are energetic, analytic and inventive, and will try to find solutions to any problem.
People here are known to be friendly and supportive, especially towards foreigners.
The Serbian Labor Law of 2005 defines provisions for employee protections and workers’ rights are applicable to Serbia’s workforce of 2.9 million. Employees in Serbia enjoy protections against discrimination based on age, religion, sexual orientation, gender expression, and race.
Common questions that could come up during the hiring process include the minimum wage, overtime rates, and guaranteed paid time off. We can help you offer a complete, competitive, and compliant benefits package to your employees in Serbia.
For customers of Digital Infinity, all employee payments will be made in equal monthly instalments 4 days before the last working day of each calendar month, payable in arrears.
We can help you get a new employee started in Serbia fast. The minimum onboarding time we need is only 20 working days.
Our team ensures your employees are onboarded and paid as quickly as possible while keeping your business compliant with all local employment legislation. The minimum onboarding time begins after the employee signs and submits all required information with Digital Infinity.
Please note, payroll cut-off dates can impact the actual first day of employment.
Employees are entitled to at least 20 days of paid vacation annually. Serbian labor law stipulates that the minimal duration of annual leave has to be increased on the basis of following criteria.
- Contributions to work
- Working conditions
- Working experience
- Kind and level of education of the employee
The Employer is free to determine the exact number of days of increase for each of the categories above.
Employees are entitled to take the 12 public holidays as paid days off work.
For non-work-related health challenges, employees are entitled to 65% of their wages for the first month of an illness, or even full wages, if an employee’s illness is related to the nature of the job.
For illness exceeding the first month, employees can draw sickness benefits from the Serbian Health Insurance Fund.
Female employees having their first and second pregnancies are entitled to maternity and childcare, starting 28 days before delivery, and lasting for an entire year, with their full wages paid for the duration of the leave.
Maternity and childcare leave lasts up to two years for the third pregnancy onward, with full wages paid throughout the leave duration.
Paternity leave lasts for seven days.
- Bereavement leave: employees are entitled to five days of paid leave in case of the death of a close family member.
- Health purposes: Employees can take two paid days off work for voluntary blog transfusion.
- Adoption: Foster and adoptive parents are entitled to at last eight months of leave, starting when the process is finalized, until the child turns 11 months of age.
Employee contracts can be terminated if a just cause is established, such as dishonesty, negligence, fraud, or any other work-related offenses, and the grounds for termination must be tendered in advance to the employee or the latter’s trade union.
Advance notice is only required if an employer is terminating an employee for inability to carry out tasks related to the employment contract, and in such a case, can be given anywhere from eight to 30 days in advance.
Severance payments are only mandatory if an employee is laid off due to redundancy and are calculated by multiplying a third of the employee’s annual salary by the number of years of employment with the employer.
The Probation Period is maximum of three months. It is common to apply the maximum probation period to senior roles.