Legal challenges of teleworking in Latvia

Economic and technological changes and Covid-19 pandemic as well, have given rise to new forms of employment across the world. It is believed that new forms of employment can help to build a more flexible and inclusive labour market. Recent data shows a significant increase of telework in Latvia. That leads to a discussion about sufficiency of regulations for telework in Latvia to ensure adequate employee protection and acceptable working conditions. The need for a clear legal regulation of telework is also proved by the significant breach of labor law in the implementation of telework during the Covid-19 pandemic in Latvia. Both primary and secondary data were used in the study. The primary data set consists of three surveys conducted in the second half of 2020 - the Latvian Business Survey, the Population Survey and the Employee Survey. Additionally, recent scientific literature analyze, case study analyze and analyze of legal acts was conducted. In the result the authors have concluded on most significant obstacles to implementation on telework in Latvia. In general those are: lack of a definition of telework in Latvian Labour law, lack of clear rights to disconnect form digital devices in labour law and disorganized tax system for telework. The results of the study also emphasize the need to strengthen the role of mediation in labor disputes - especially with regard to remote work. Finally, the authors conclude that there is a need to adjust regulation in Latvia to meet the need of wide spread of the use of telework. The changes are needed not only in Labour law, but also in tax regulation. The authors also conclude that a significant role to protect labour right is to governmental authorities to explain the rights to employees and employers.