19 October 2021 – Legislative amendments to this effect have been voted by Parliament in first reading.  The subject of digital contract signing came up during the pandemic period, when employee-employer relations were undergoing changes, with employers having to send their staff home and work with them remotely etc.

All these changes in the employment relationship between employee and employer also imply changes in the employment contract.  However, current legislation does not clearly stipulate that contract changes can be made by electronic signature.  The employer is obliged to notify the employee under signature of any change in the employment relationship, which is interpreted to mean that the employee must receive a document in duplicate which he must sign in holography, i.e. by hand. And this means that the person must physically come to work.

The document voted by MPs gives economic agents and citizens the possibility to use electronic signatures in the establishment of employment relationships, if necessary, and to make it known by several methods that would confirm receipt of the information by the employee.

The use of electronic signature in labour relations was requested by the business community and came from the associative sector member of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, in the process of drafting the Roadmap for boosting the process of digitization of the national economy and development of e-commerce.

Subsequently, national and international experts from the EBRD, GIZ Moldova, USAID (Structural Reforms Programme in Moldova) and IFC, at the request of the Ministry of Economy, within the platform of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister, drafted the legislative amendments, approved by the Parliament in the first reading, which are part of the first legislative package for the digitalization of the economy.

The Secretariat of the Economic Council to the Prime Minister is supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, funded by the UK Government’s Good Governance Fund.