Deadline for Submission of Employment Books for Digitization Extended by Two More Years

The deadline for the submission of employment books for digitization has been extended by another two years. Different deadlines have been set for employers to submit the books based on the number of employees working for them. This information comes from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

Accordingly, employers must submit their employees' employment books to the social security service of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in the following order:

• Employers with 1,000 or more employees must submit within three months after receiving a notification sent by the authorized body to their contact person's email address.
• Employers with 300 to 1,000 employees have six months to submit.
• Employers with 100 to 300 employees have nine months.
• Employers with 50 to 100 employees have twelve months.
• Employers with fewer than 50 employees have fifteen months.

Employers who fail to submit the employment books may be compelled to do so through court proceedings. Furthermore, given that the legal relations arising between the service and the employer are of a public nature, any disputes must be addressed in accordance with the procedures defined by the Administrative Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia.

It should be noted that as of January 1, 2017, the use of employment books in labor relations ceased, and employers were made obligated to submit the employment books they maintained to the authorized body. After including the information available in the employment books in the state pension system database, these books are returned to employees.

During 2017 and 2018, around 270,000 employment books were collected by the territorial divisions of the service and entered into the 'Employment Books' subsystem through contractor organizations. At the end of that period, according to data from the State Revenue Committee database, there were about 320,000 employees whose books had not yet been verified. Additionally, non-working individuals also approached territorial divisions for the verification of their books.

In the 2019 process, it was planned to verify around 350,000 employment books. It is necessary to consider that initially, there were no administrative penalties for employers who violated the legislative obligation to submit the books. Lacking any legislative lever, several employers have not yet submitted their employees' employment books until now. During 2019, approximately 125,000 employment books were collected.