Montenegrins Want an End to 'Nine-to-Five'

The Montenegrin government is to discuss an initiative to change the working hours of the public sector at a session on Thursday.

Instead of working from nine to five, the country's more than 60,000 public employees could start to work at 7am instead.

The initiative comes from several hundred staff in the Ministry of Interior, who in May filed a petition to modify their working hours.

The Minister of the Interior, Rasko Konjevic, then sent a letter to all public service institutions to conduct a survey among their employees. The majority of those surveyed supported the iniciative.

Only around  80 workers in the public administration have said they are satisfied with the nine-to-five arrangement, which was introduced in Montenegro in 2004.

"If we started earlier we would be more productive, and it would leave us more private time in the afternoon. This is particularly important for a huge number of employees who are parents," the initiators of the petition said in July.

Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have already reverted back to the old Yugoslav working timetable, which meant public workings starting at 7 or 7.30am.