Working time, time off work & minimum wage in Angola
Employees entitled to minimum employment rights
All employees are entitled to minimum employment rights.
Working hours
Maximum daily and weekly working hours are 8 hours per day and 44 hours per week. Overtime pay is required for hours worked in excess of these limits. These limits may be inapplicable to employees who perform direction and leadership duties, duties of inspection, or provide direct support to the employer, teleworking employees and for other employees who regularly perform their duties away from the workplace , without the immediate control of their manager or performance of work which, by its nature, can only be carried out outside the limits of working hours (ie, employees who may be exempt from a work schedule). The corresponding written agreement, ie, the agreement establishing exemption from work schedule for one of the above mentioned reasons) shall be included in the employee’s individual file. Typically, employees under exemption regime are entitled to an exemption bonus.
Overtime
Overtime may occur with an extraordinary increase in workload, to prevent serious damage or if due to force majeure. It is subject to the following maximum limits: (a) 2 hours per day, (b) 40 hours per month and (c) 200 hours per year.
Each hour of overtime work is compensated with additional payment of up to 30 hours per month, corresponding to 50 percent of the value of the normal working hour. Overtime exceeding that limit is compensated with additional payment of 75 percent for each hour.
For purposes of payment for overtime work:
(a) fractions of time of less than 15 minutes are not considered;
(b) fractions of time between 15 and 44 minutes are considered as half an hour;
(c) fractions of time between 45 and 60 minutes are counted as 1 hour;
(d) work performed on the day or half-day of complementary weekly rest is considered a normal working day.
Employees who perform overtime work that prevents them from taking daily rest are entitled to paid compensatory rest equivalent to the hours of rest missed, to be taken on the following working day. Employees who perform overtime work on a mandatory weekly rest day are entitled to a paid compensatory rest day, to be taken on the following working day.
Wages
The minimum wage is established by Presidential Decree. It is set out as a general minimum wage, but there is also a minimum wage for trade and extractive industry groups, transport services and manufacturing groups and agriculture groups. Under the Decree currently in force, the general minimum wage is AOA32,181.15. The following sector-specific minimum wages also apply:
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Trade and extractive industry groups: AOA48,271.73
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Transport services and manufacturing groups: AOA40,226.44 and
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Agriculture groups: AOA32,181.15.
Vacation
Minimum 22 working days per year, plus 12 public national holidays.
Sick leave & pay
Employees are entitled to take off as much time as they need for sick leave. In this case, the employer continues to pay the employee’s salary for a period of 6 months, with the right of reimbursement from Social Security. For fixed-term employees, the obligation to pay salary ceases on the date of expiry of the fixed-term contract if the illness continues after that date.
Employees can take up to 8 paid working days of leave per year to provide unavoidable assistance to members of the family, in case of illness or accident of the spouse, parents and children up to the age of 18.
Maternity/parental leave & pay
A pregnant employee is entitled to a paid maternity leave of 3 months. The amount of the maternity allowance is equal to the average of the 2 best monthly salaries from the 6 months preceding the commencement of the maternity leave. The maternity allowance is paid directly by the employer to the employee and, subsequently, the Social Security services reimburses the employer in full. Fathers are not entitled to any paid leave on the birth of a child; it is only considered as a justifiable reason for absence from work for 1 day. The father is also entitled to an unpaid supplementary leave of 7 consecutive or non-consecutive working days.
Fathers are also entitled to replace the mother of their newborn child while on maternity leave in the event of the mother's proven physical or mental incapacity for the duration of the incapacity or in case of mother's death.
Other leave/time off work
Employees may also be entitled to leave for other purposes, such as for their wedding; relatives’ death, fulfillment of legal or military obligations which must be performed within the normal working period; attendance to tests by working students; attendance of training, professional proficiency, professional qualification or job conversion courses authorized by the employer; participation in cultural or sporting activities, either in representation of the country or the company or in official contests; the performance of necessary and urgent action in the exercise of leading tasks in labor unions as a union representative or as a member of the employee’s representative body; or the participation of the employee as a candidate to general or municipal elections approved by the competent authority.
