More than two thousand companies, which had closed their doors due to Covid-19, have resumed their activities by March 1 in the country, allowing 49,738 workers to regain their jobs.
The figure corresponds to 97 and 95.5 percent of the companies and workers, respectively, that were forced to close down and/or stay at home due to illness. The Labor sector has a record of 68 companies and a total of 2347 workers have not yet returned to work.
The information was advanced, a few days ago, by the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Margarida Talapa, at the opening of the I Plenary Session of the Labor Consultative Commission (CCT) for the year 2021.
Talapa said that the Government has been interacting with the social partners to ensure a peaceful working environment, avoiding job losses, especially in this period of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Covid-19 has brought a negative impact on our economy as, by way of illustration, from March to December 2020, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security received 2167 communications from companies, employing a total of 52,085 workers, reporting various mitigation measures for its impact,” he said.
He added that, the sector he heads has encouraged employers, and not only, to maintain jobs, but also to respect workers’ rights enshrined in labor law.
“In cases where maintaining the employment relationship becomes technically impossible, we have sensitized employers to give preference to temporary suspension of employment contracts over termination,” he added.
The first Plenary Session of the CCT had as agenda the reflection about the resumption or not of the negotiation of national minimum wages for this year, the proposal of the decree that establishes the forgiveness of fines and reduction of interest on late payments, as well as the balance on the activities undertaken by this body last year.
