The act of the 14th of May 2020 amending certain acts on protective measures in connection with the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus provided for changes in the act on the social insurance system.

The provision stipulates that the notification of the insured to social insurance, in addition to the existing general data such as surname, forenames, date of birth, citizenship, address of residence or title to insurance, is also to include information on the profession performed by the insured.

In response to this statutory obligation, we can find, on the website of the Government Legislation Centre, a draft regulation of the Minister of Family and Social Policy amending the regulation on determining templates of notifications to social insurance and health insurance, monthly reports and settlement declarations and other documents of similar nature. LINK

The draft provides that from the 16th of May 2021, premium payers reporting insured persons to ZUS (Social Security/Insurance Institution) will have to provide additional information to the insurance institution about the occupation performed by the insured. In order to make this possible, relevant changes have been made to the ZUS ZUA and ZUS ZZA forms by adding items concerning the code of the occupation performed. In the appropriate positions, the occupation code should be entered, which is a six-digit number specified in the annex to the regulation on the classification of occupations and specialities for the needs of the labour market and the scope of its application.

As it was indicated in the justification to the draft, "the introduction of the obligation to provide information on the occupation performed in the social insurance and health insurance application resulted from the need for the Social Insurance Institution to obtain this data, as well as from more and more frequent cases of requesting statistical data in connection with the information on the occupation performed by ministries, as well as the Central Statistical Office, research institutes and universities. Moreover, "Information on the occupation performed is essential for monitoring deficit and surplus occupations, analyses or forecasts of the labour market and social structure changes in Poland".

Although the argumentation of the legislator seems justified, unfortunately the new obligation will create additional work for payers. The employer will be obliged to assign the position performed by the employee to a relevant code, as is the case with entrepreneurs, who must indicate the relevant PKD (Polish Classification of Business Activities) code for themselves.