Armenia

Employee Benefits in Armenia

Employee benefits in Armenia include pension, paid time off, and employment insurance which includes personal accident, healthcare, and travel insurance. There is no mandatory personal employment insurance in the country, only optional. Employee perks are not common in the country.

Pension

In 2010, the government in Yerevan passed a law introducing a mandatory funded pension pillar for all those born after 1974. However, when the law took effect in January 2014, critics from the opposition parties challenged it in the Constitutional Court, arguing that people should be able to decide for themselves what happens to their savings.

The main objective of the fund is to provide participants with a funded pension by securing the long-term asset growth of the fund. It has three components:

• State pension
• Mandatory funded pension
• Voluntary funded pension

The State Pension System of the Republic of Armenia has two components:

• Social pension
• Employment pension

The social pension is a defined pension rate that is not based on the payments made. It is funded from the State budget, and its main issue is to provide pensioners who have no required eligible years of service with the minimum income.

Employment Pension (the first level of the multi-pillar pension system) is the old-age pension, based on the payments made. However, the amount of this pension type is not conditioned by the payments the person has made during employment years, but by the number of seniority years.

There are two asset managers participating in the system:

• C-Quadrat Ampega Asset Management Armenia, a subsidiary of C-Quadrat Investment in Austria
• Talanx Asset Management in Germany (Amundi-ACBA Armenia)

Participants are free to choose the manager of their pension assets and the management policy of such assets.

The following persons may participate on a voluntary basis in the mandatory funded pension component:

1)  The following persons born prior to 1974:

• Hired employees and persons performing public service, with the exception of military servants and persons having an equal status
• Notaries
• Individual entrepreneurs

2)  Self-employed persons, irrespective of their age

A participant having voluntarily joined the mandatory funded pension scheme shall contribute at the rate of 5% of their basic income.

Funded pensions may be paid in the following forms:

1)  Annuities

2)  Programmed withdrawals and/or

3)  Lump sum

Paid Time Off

Maternity / Paternity Pay – Maternity Benefit

Benefits are payable, only to the biological mother, for a maximum of 3 months.

For the working mother (including self-employed) 140 days for regular labor, with 70 days before the expected birth date and 70 days afterward. 155 days for complicated labor, with 70 days before the expected birth date and 85 days afterward. 180 days for multiple child deliveries (twins+), with 70 days before the expected birth date and 110 days afterward. Parents who have adopted a child will be granted leave until he/she is 70 days old. 

Employment Insurance

There is no mandatory personal employment insurance, only optional. However, most employers grant employees medical insurance. Travel and personal insurance are also available on an optional basis. The main coverages are:

Personal Accident

• Bodily Injury
• Medical expenses
• Sudden acute poisoning
• Disability (permanent or temporary)
• Death

Medical

• Annual medical treatment and consultation
• Pregnancy, birth care
• Cardiology
• Chronic diseases
• Dentistry
• Ophthalmology
• Other services

Travel

• Medical expenses, including transportation
• Legal Advice
• Amateur sport injuries
• Loss or damage of baggage
• Public Liability
• Repatriation

Related Government Websites

• Permanent disability and survivor pensions: Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
• Medical benefits: State Health Agency

This information about mandatory and supplemental employee benefits in Armenia comes from Asinta’s Central and Eastern European Partner, the GrECo Group.