In 2020, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted a Regulation on programme of incentives for youth employment “My first pay” (Official Gazette of RS no. 107/2020) which entered into force on 15 August 2020 and about which we already wrote in the article available here.

The Regulation amending the Regulation on programme of incentives for youth employment “My first pay” was published in the Official Gazette of RS no. 79 from 6 August 2021 (“Regulation”) and it has been in force since 14 August 2021. The Regulation also amended certain requirements regarding the amount and payment of fee, as well as terms of application.

In 2020, the Programme “My first pay” included 8,224 persons and this year more than 10,000 youth under the age of 30, will be eligible for participating in the 9-month program whether in public or private sector.

New terms of application and the amount of fees

So far, the persons eligible for this programme were those under the age of 30, with or without employment record, with secondary or university degree, who are registered as unemployed in the records of the National Employment Service.

A new condition introduced by the Regulation is that the persons participating in the program “My first pay” can do that only once.

The Regulation also modified the amount of monthly fee paid to the program beneficiaries. For instance, a participant with secondary school degree will be provided with monthly fee of RSD 22,000 instead of former RSD 20,000, while a beneficiary with university degree will receive RSD 26,000 instead of former RSD 24,000.

Also, the Regulation prescribes that the payment of monthly fee to “My first pay” beneficiaries will be done through bank Poštanska štedionica ad Belgrade, which will open special-purpose accounts for the program beneficiaries and, for executing payment transactions and provision of other services related to such accounts, the bank Poštanska štedionica ad Belgrade and Public company Pošta Srbije will not charge any fees or other expenses.

In any case, the National Employment Service will announce a public call and specify the terms and criteria for inclusion of unemployed persons in the program.

This article is to be considered as exclusively informative, with no intention to provide legal advice. If you should need additional information, please contact us directly.