Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1473180
3 NEWS 14.7.2022 FROM PAGE 1 Under the new laws, fathers will be receiving 10 days paid leave, while new parents can benefit from up to two months paid leave. Regarding parental leave, parents will now be entitled to two months paid leave at the national parental leave rate. ey will also ben- efit from another two months of unpaid leave which will be transferable from one parent to another. Parental paid leave can be taken grad- ually across the first eight years of par- enthood. In the first four years, the par- ents have to take 50% of the paid leave, or four weeks total. Between the fourth and sixth years, parents can take two weeks paid leave. e remaining two weeks of paid leave can be taken between the sixth and eighth. Xuereb said that having Jobsplus, DIER or the Maternity Leave Fund ad- minister a centralised tracking system would ensure that there is no abuse of the benefit and ease the administrative burden of implementation on employ- ers. "Imagine an employer having to keep track of the leave taken by each employ- ee, for each child they have, tracking each leave day over a period of eight years, possibly across multiple employ- ers, since employees tend to change jobs multiple times over a period of eight years ... this could very well turn out to be a veritable nightmare," she said. e legislative package will come into effect on 2 August. Government will finance all the measures until 2023. As from 1 January 2024, the private sector will have to finance its share. Like other EU member states, Malta had an obligation to implement this EU Directive by the end of this month. "To be fair, the new leave package is not overly excessive," Xuereb said. "In fact, the number of days added were the bare minimum stipulated under the EU Directive, and other considerations, like carer's leave, remains unpaid." She insisted however that the directive was agreed to at EU level at a time when employers were not facing the inflation- ary pressures that are being felt today. Government will be funding the addi- tional benefits in the first year but will place the onus on employers thereaf- ter, through substantial increases in the Maternity Leave Fund contributions. is will have a negative impact on businesses, many of them are still trying to recuperate from the pandemic and struggling with several challenges such as labour and skills shortages and the resultant wage inflation, high costs of raw materials and transportation, and uncertainty surrounding the sustaina- bility of the current energy prices. Xuereb said that the current situation calls for greater sensitivity and a reas- sessment of the situation after the first year of implementation. She also insisted that no portion of parental leave entitlement under the revised parameters should have been made transferable between the parents. "In the interest of facilitating the ad- ministration of parental leave - and more importantly, of ensuring equal burden sharing between parents, ir- respective of gender - no portion of parental leave entitlement should be transferable," she said. Xuereb said that although this rec- ommendation had been made by all employer bodies - jointly - in writing, it was not taken up by Government. "is is a missed opportunity to do something tangible to address both the gender employment gap and the gender pay gap and runs counter to promoting female participation in the labour mar- ket," she said. Substantial increase in Maternity Leave Fund contributions will leave businesses reeling IVAN Falzon has been appointed Infrastructure Mal- ta Chief Executive Officer, the Infrastructure Ministry said on Wednesday. Falzon previously occupied the role of CEO at the Water Services Corporation and Mater Dei Hospital. "He was instrumental in a number of transformation- al projects undertaken during this period with custom- er centricity given particular attention," the ministry said. Earlier in May, Trustin Farrugia Cann was appointed IM CEO, replacing Fredrick Azzopardi. But two months later, Farrugia Cann stepped down, citing the difficulty to juggle his new work commit- ments with his international refereeing career. Ivan Falzon appointed new Infrastructure Malta CEO PASSENGER traffic through Mal- ta International Airport contin- ued its upward trend, with June being the busiest month since October 2019, the company said on Wednesday. MIA said it welcomed 603,532 passengers last month, marking a recovery of 83.6% of pre-pandem- ic traffic. is result was achieved on the back of a recovery of 80.8% in air- craft movements and a recovery of 82.3% in seat capacity, the com- pany said. It added that the seat load factor for June increased by 1.4% over pre-pan- demic levels to stand at 85.5%. Italy strengthened its top spot position as a source market, fol- lowed by the UK, France and Ger- many. Spain made a return to the top five markets on MIA's leader board, following an absence of seven months, pushing Poland down to sixth place. MIA said that overall passenger traffic in the first six months of the year is almost equivalent to the full-year results for 2021. Between January and June, 2.3 million passengers travelled through MIA, translating to a re- covery of 72.1% of the traffic han- dled during the first half of 2019. Meanwhile, MIA's board of di- rectors will meet on 27 July to dis- cuss and approve the company's interim financial statements for the six months that ended on 30 June 2022. June was MIA's busiest month since October 2019