New guidelines issued for unpaid absence and parental leave calculations

The Department of Public Administration and Personnel in Cyprus has issued a circular clarifying that weekends and public holidays count as unpaid absence if an employee fails to return to work on the following working day. Under these rules, for a five-day work week, any parental leave spanning across weekends or holidays requires those intervening days to be recorded as unpaid leave. While parental leave is deducted only for actual working days, the total period of absence includes non-working days if the leave does not conclude immediately before a return to work. The Social Insurance Services pay an allowance that covers Saturdays and public holidays not falling on a Sunday. The standard maximum parental leave entitlement is 18 weeks per child for each parent, which is personal and non-transferable, though two weeks may be transferred between parents. This entitlement extends to 20 weeks for parents of children with disabilities. Additionally, the limit increases to 23 weeks for widowed parents, single parents, or cases where one parent has been stripped of responsibility or has not recognized the child.