Laws about hiring are complicated, and the same is true in Iraq. But there are ways to sidestep the headaches—if your company hasn’t already established a physical presence in Iraq, you have two real options when it comes to hiring. We’ll detail both below.
If you want to successfully hire in
Iraq
, you have two options:
Laws about hiring contractors are significantly more simple in
Iraq
. Onboarding talent takes days, not weeks or months. Both you, the company, and your talent have more flexibility. And in many cases, since you’re remote, the talent you’re hiring is better classified as a contractor, anyway. Of course, it’s not possible in every case, but it’s what we built Panther for.
This is the long route. You can either establish a physical presence with an entity and register as an employer, or you can use an Employer-of-Record (EOR) solution. Odds are, you’ll find using an EOR to be the easier route. Still, using an EOR in
Iraq
is expensive—it can often be $500 per month per employee—and sometimes prone to lengthy onboarding times.
Hiring contractors is normally the easier, faster, more flexible choice—but don’t just take it from us. Below are the specific benefits and drawbacks to hiring contractors in
Iraq
.
Hiring employees takes months, at the minimum. When you hire with Panther’s locally-generated contracts, it’s a matter of days or weeks. This means you can hire the best talent, fast, without losing them to a hellish procession of paperwork.
It costs just $0 to sign up for Panther, then $49 per month to hire your contractors with Panther. If you hired employees manually (or did contracting on your own), you’d likely be on the hook for thousands of dollars each month. Setting up an entity alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Hiring contractors in
Iraq
means you’re generally not on the hook for things like health insurance and paid time off. This makes hiring flexible for you, and it gives your talent more options.
Hiring employees is a bigger commitment, and generally puts you at a bigger risk for legal fees. When you hire contractors overseas, your biggest risk is misclassification—but even then, misclassification penalties are often minimal and just require you to pay off any compensation that the person would have been owed as an employee.
The contractor life isn’t for everyone—some people want the security that being an employee often appears to provide. Though it’s rare, this does happen, and it’s one disadvantage of manage an all-contractor team.
Most countries’ contractor-employer relationship laws stipulate that the employer can’t set fixed working hours, among other things. These laws give contractors more freedom over how and when they do their work than an employee would have. In reality, however, most contractors are willing & able to work on the company’s schedule—it’s a matter of setting expectations beforehand.
If you’re hiring contractors in
Iraq
, you can pay them with Panther in a single click. You won’t need to worry about complicated wire transfers, fees, or currency conversions. We’ll take care of it all. Just make a click and your contractor will get paid in their currency of choice. This is a valuable bonus for talent in countries where the local currency is particularly weak—most people appreciate the ability to receive their payment in stronger currencies.
If you’ve read up until this point, you’ll know that it’s easier, cheaper, and more flexible to hire contractors in Iraq than employees. Still, there are valid reasons why you might want to hire employees instead. The content below is for you—we’ll cover employer taxes and obligations in Iraq.
PTO is calculated by the:
There are 13 public holidays with paid.
Employees are eligible to claim 30days of fully paid sick leave for every year of service, with a maximum cap of180 days.
After the 30-day mark, social insurance will cover any paid sick leave. Employees must show documented medical evidence to claim paid sick leave.
Employees can take 72 days of paid maternity leave if they are working in a company operating in Iraq.
However, the number of days can be increased based on the requirements of the employee.
The Labor Law does not grant fathers paternity leave. any parent (male or female) is entitled to unpaid leave for up to three days to tend to a sick child under six years of age.
In Iraq, any parent (male or female) is entitled to unpaid leave for up to three days to tend to a sick child under six years of age.
In Iraq, if the employee is involved in some hazardous activity like heavy equipment operation, etc., he will be entitled to 30 days of paid leave.
Employees can take leaves for marriage. Also, employees can take a leave even if their children are getting married.
These leaves can be extended but would be unpaid.
Employees can take leaves if there is a death in their family but would be unpaid.
Iraq has a very complex system when it comes to the termination of employment. Like any other country, there are several guidelines for termination of employment in Iraq.
Therefore, you need to have a comprehensive knowledge of the system and its implications.
Following are the grounds of termination laid down by the Labor Law of Iraq:
The employee can terminate the employment contract without giving notice, in the following circumstances:
Employers are required to provide at least 30 days advance notice in writing to employees and pay an end-of-service gratuity that ranges from the equivalent of two to 20 weeks of service depending on length of employment.
If the notice is not given, the employee is entitled to compensation amounting to their salary for the notice period.
A severance payment of two weeks salary for each year of service and one month in case of unjustified termination is required.
The employee can also ask to be reinstated to their position instead of receiving a severance payment.
Probation period can be a month or two, but not more than three.
The standard work week is 40 hours (Iraqi law 37 of 2015).
The maximum working hours are 48 hours per week (Iraqi law 37 of 2015 article 67).
The minimum rest duration per week is 24 hours.
Employees must be compensated for overtime with an additional 50% of their regular salary (if the overtime is carried out during the day) or an additional 100% (if the overtime is carried out at night, on a day of rest or if the work is considered to be arduous or harmful).
Overtime is capped atone to four hours per day, depending on the nature of the work.
Additionally, overtime is limited to 40 hours per 90 days and 120 hours per 12 months.
Overtime performed during the day is paid at a rate of50%, while overtime pay is doubled at night.
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