Parliament bill would let employees use unused annual leave after prolonged absence
Draft amendments to Articles 141 and 165 would allow carry-over of full unused leave after prolonged illness, adoption or parental care until the end of the next calendar year.
Skopje — On 17 September 2026 at 08:10 legislators from the opposition SDSM submitted proposed amendments to the Law on Labour Relations aimed at preventing long-standing practices that caused employees to lose the right to annual leave when they were absent for prolonged illness or parental care.
Key change: carry-over until the end of the next calendar year
The draft alters Article 141 to create an explicit exception to the current rule that requires all employees to use leftover annual leave from the previous year by 30 June of the current year. Under the proposed text, workers who were prevented from taking their leave because of adoption procedures, establishing parental care, prolonged illness, maternity leave, or other justified family and life events will be allowed to use their unused annual leave in full immediately after the reason for absence ends, and up to the end of the next calendar year.
Lawmakers say the change removes a procedural obstacle that in practice penalised people who could not return to work before the 30 June cutoff. The amendment clarifies that annual leave may be taken even after 30 June, provided it is used by the end of the following calendar year.
The proposal also updates Article 165 to address gaps in protection for maternity and parental leave. It guarantees the right to uninterrupted and justified absence from work for women who exercise the right to leave due to pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood but who, for certain reasons, do not meet the conditions for salary compensation under health insurance rules. The new provision aims to prevent job loss or an unregulated employment status while a parent cares for a newborn.
According to the text submitted to the Assembly, the overall objective of the changes is to protect workers' health, working capacity and social security by ensuring full and uninterrupted exercise of rights relating to annual leave and leave for pregnancy, birth and parenthood. The proposal is signed by Blagoj Bochvarski, Borche Cvetkov, Venko Filipche, Daniela Nikolova, Dimitar Kovachevski, Jovan Mitreski, Jovanka Trenchevska, Ljupcho Nikolovski, Mile Talevski, Mitko Trajchuleski, Oliver Spasovski, Sanja Lukarevska, Slavjanka Petrovska, Sonja Mirakovska and Fatmir Bitiqi.
Photo: press material from the event
