A comprehensive reform of privileged work experience, or insurance experience with extended duration, could come into effect as early as next year, writes Novi list.
According to information from the Ministry of Labor and Pension System, the plan is to prepare new rules by autumn so that this topic can be discussed alongside changes in the pension system. Domestic legislation recognizes over 80 categories of employees who have the right to privileged work experience, which costs the system about 600 million kuna annually.
The categories of workers, or professions with privileged work experience, of which there were over 82 thousand such insured persons last year (excluding the judiciary and security-intelligence services), will be reduced, starting with the ‘abolition’ of those professions that no longer exist in the market.
Increased insurance experience now implies that for 12 months of work experience, 14, 15, 16, or 18 months of pension experience are recognized, depending on the profession. However, such increased experience, for example, members of the military and police, as well as fishermen, would not have in the future.
According to information from Novi list, there is consideration of forming special pension funds, or sectoral funds for the military, police, and even fishermen. In these funds, which would be entirely state-owned, 20 percent of pension contributions would be allocated. The collected funds would be ‘on the market’, and through smart investments, efforts would be made to increase them, which would ‘cover’ the existing privileged work experience.
