As the rest of the world, Uzbekistan’s economics and labour market were severely affected by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Mr. Umurzakov, Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations of the Republic of Uzbekistan, spoke about 820 thousand of Uzbek citizens becoming temporarily unemployed during the crisis caused by the pandemic, with unemployment rate rising to 13.2% in 2020. To mitigate the consequences of job and income loss of people, the Government of Uzbekistan channeled 496 billion soum for ensuring temporary employment for its citizens during the crisis period.

Also, among the first steps of ensuring the safety of employees and avoiding the total lockdown of businesses and enterprises, the Provision on the temporary procedure for transferring employees to teleworking, flexible work hours schedules, or working from home during quarantine measures were adopted. The provisions outlined the main forms of remote work:

• Distance work outside the default workplace
• Work of flexible hours
• Home based work and work at home

Thus, the remote forms of work are becoming part of the response to COVID-19, lock downs, social distancing.
 
Statistics about participation in different forms of work are essential to support evidence-based policymaking and analysis. Though the concept of remote work is not new, with the phenomenon becoming more and more widespread, there is need to paying more attention to capturing the differences in the forms of remote work, its use extent, as well as if the remote workers are enjoying the dame level of social benefits and other workers.

Mr. Michael Frosch, the ILO Senior Statistician, spoke about the key differences in the variety of remote forms of work and their definitions, and how they should be documented through the labour force surveys.

Some challenges for Uzbekistan were discussed by Mr Ulugbek Abdurakhmanov, Head of the Department of the Academy of the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Uzbekistan. They include lack of statistical data, need in legislative framework amendments, lack of policies at company, local and state level, attitude of managers and employees to remote forms of work. The Academy is working on the analysis of the impact of teleworking in the country, and subsequently developing the guidance on teleworking and drafting the necessary legislation.

The joint work of the Academy and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations will lead to establishing new legislative provisions covering remote work, and including the necessary amendments to the new Labour Code.