Change of the century on labour market: starting 2011, employment record books become history

Starting January 1, 2011, traditional employment record books have disappeared and been replaced by electronic databases to which employers have access on the basis of a user and a password.
People who get employed for the first time this year will no longer have a personal official document proving the years worked. Experts advise employees to more carefully keep the individual work contracts they seal with employers, which should also be signed by the officials of territorial labour inspectorates.
The Government in late December passed an emergency ordinance attesting that starting this year employers will submit labour contracts and payroll records to territorial labour inspectorates in an electronic format. Practically, the ordinance cancels a 1976 decree on the employment record book that established the need of this document to prove employees' work record. But employment record books are much older than that.
By mid-2011, employers and territorial labour inspectorates have to return employment record books to employees, which they need to keep in order to prove how many years they worked when they retire in case their records were not scanned.