Summary record of the ninth session of the Team Council

Chair: Nikola Jurić, Chair of the Team Council, Leipzig, Germany

Session: Ninth session of the Team Council, held in two Open Table sittings: Asia-Pacific at 06:00 UTC and Europe/Africa/Americas at 16:00 UTC.

Attendance: The published record does not contain a verified count of participants attending either sitting or both sittings. The Team Council had 123 members from 39 countries as of 26 October 2026; that membership figure is not an attendance count.

Next session: 23 November 2026, subject to confirmation in the session notice.

Agenda

1. Review of the interim pattern review on the cost of a first hire, RC/TM/2026/N.1.
2. Review of Team Council report totals, geographic distribution and reported business sizes.
3. Discussion of the distinction between direct hiring costs, tax wedges, payroll administration and uncertainty about future obligations.
4. Identification of evidence gaps and next steps under the five-part pattern test.
5. Confirmation of actions and the next session.

Summary of proceedings

1. The Chair opened the two sittings by explaining that the purpose was to review the evidence and the current stage of TM-001, not to decide the final form of a standard. He recalled that the Council’s proposed objective is to make employment costs for a business’s first ten hires lower and simpler through phased social contributions, one-stop payroll registration and predictable rules, so that small employers can hire formally. He emphasized that this remains an agenda item under examination, rather than an adopted policy recommendation.

2. The Chair reviewed the five-part pattern test—Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread and Corroboration—and the interim finding recorded on 13 October in RC/TM/2026/N.1. Two of the five tests had been met at that review. He clarified that the evidence discussed in this session did not itself alter that finding. Members were asked to distinguish their own experience from evidence that could support a finding across countries and circumstances.

3. The Chair presented the Team Council figures available as of 26 October. The Council had 123 members from 39 countries and had received 178 reports from 43 countries. The median amount at stake was approximately US$4,220. The reports were recorded under hiring costs. The Chair noted that these figures described the material submitted to the Council; they did not, by themselves, establish that the experience was representative of all small employers.

4. The Chair also summarized the distribution by reported team size: businesses with 2–9 workers accounted for 42 per cent, those with 10–49 workers for 16 per cent, sole operators for 39 per cent, and those with 50–249 workers for 3 per cent. Twenty-four reports had been received in the preceding 30 days. He stated that the different staffing groups should not be collapsed into one account of the first hire, since a sole operator considering an initial employee may face a different decision from an employer already managing a team.

5. The Chair read the leading country counts from the Council record: Canada, 27 reports; the United States, 23; Germany, 13; Italy, 12; the United Kingdom, 10; and Brazil, Mexico and India, 7 each. He cautioned that the counts reflected reports received and did not constitute a country ranking of hiring barriers. Members agreed that future summaries should retain the distinction between a high report count and a demonstrated rate or prevalence in a national population.

6. Elena Marković of Zagreb, Croatia, reported that the decision to hire could involve costs beyond the first payroll calculation. She described having to determine which registrations, insurance arrangements and recurring declarations applied before she could estimate the full commitment. Her contribution supported recording administrative steps separately from the cash amount at stake. She asked that future evidence collection identify when a reported cost was paid once, repeated each pay period or incurred only if a particular event occurred.

7. Mateusz Nowak of Łódź, Poland, described uncertainty about the rules that would apply after hiring as a barrier distinct from the headline cost. He said an employer planning the first position needed to forecast the total commitment over time, including scheduled changes and obligations that were not apparent at the initial registration stage. He urged the Council not to treat “predictability” as a synonym for a lower rate. The Chair recorded this as a point for the evidence framework, not as a finding that the relevant rules were inconsistent across jurisdictions.

8. Ana Paula Ribeiro of Curitiba, Brazil, asked that evidence on registration be collected in a way that would reveal how many separate systems or offices an employer had to contact. She observed that a process might be described as digital while still requiring repeated data entry or separate confirmation. She proposed that contributors record the number and order of steps, whether information had to be resubmitted, and whether completion could be verified. The Chair noted that this would help distinguish one-stop registration in practice from a single online entry point that leaves subsequent tasks uncoordinated.

9. Samira Haddad of Amman, Jordan, emphasized the need to describe the size and timing of a reported payment without asking contributors to identify their businesses. She said a useful account should indicate whether the payment was due before the worker’s first day, with the first payroll, or later, and whether the amount varied with wages or hours. She also supported retaining the Council’s rule that members remain anonymous unless they choose a public seat, and that member accounts should not name their own business.

10. Jonas Berg of Malmö, Sweden, cautioned that comparisons between countries could mislead if they combined different kinds of taxes, employer contributions and employee deductions. The Chair referred to the OECD’s 2026 publication, which reports an OECD-average tax wedge of 35.1 per cent for 2025 and a German figure of 49.3 per cent. He stressed that a tax wedge is a comparative measure, not a direct estimate of the cash cost of hiring a particular worker or a recommendation for a specific contribution rate.¹

11. Grace Wanjiku of Nairobi, Kenya, argued that the Council should connect its proposed aim of encouraging formal hiring to evidence about what employers do when formal employment appears too costly or difficult. She asked that contributors be invited to describe whether they postponed hiring, reduced hours, used another arrangement or proceeded with formal employment, without implying that any one response was unlawful or universal. The Chair noted that this could clarify the relevance of the issue while preserving the distinction between reported experience and causal proof.

12. Omar El-Sayed of Alexandria, Egypt, raised the risk that a measure intended to reduce first-hire costs might shift burdens to workers or create a sharp increase after a threshold. He requested that any later policy design be assessed for distributional effects and for what happens when an employer moves beyond the first ten hires. The Chair agreed that those questions would be relevant if the Council reached the draft-fix stage. No proposal on rates, eligibility or thresholds was put to a vote at this session.

13. In the Europe/Africa/Americas sitting, Giulia Conti of Bologna, Italy, asked that the Council separate the time spent learning a process from the time spent completing it. She reported that a procedure could be technically short but still require substantial preparation when instructions were difficult to interpret. Members supported capturing both time and uncertainty in future evidence, while avoiding a claim that all employers experienced the same level of difficulty.

14. Peter Mensah of Accra, Ghana, noted that a first-hire cost diary could help make reports more comparable if it used common prompts but remained short enough for small employers to complete. He proposed a record of the expected amount, actual amount, due date, payment frequency and administrative time. The Chair observed that the existing campaign work included a “First Ten Hires” cost diary and an employment-cost comparison. He asked that revisions to those materials be considered as evidence-gathering tools, without presenting them as an approved standard.

15. Members considered the international context. The ILO estimates that about 80 per cent of MSMEs operate in the informal economy.² The Chair said this figure could help explain why formalisation is relevant to the Council’s subject, but it could not establish that hiring costs alone cause informality or that a particular relief measure would change employer behaviour. Members agreed that the Council should use the figure with that limitation made clear in any public material.

16. The Chair summarized the procedural position at the close of discussion. TM-001 remained at two of five tests met, as recorded in the interim pattern review. The session did not determine that Volume, Frequency, Consistency, Spread or Corroboration had changed since that review. The Council had not prepared a draft fix for consultation, and no consultation or Assembly ballot on TM-001 was opened. The next procedural step remained evidence review against the five tests.

17. On decisions, the Council agreed to retain the interim finding without alteration; to keep the first-ten-hire cost diary and employment-cost comparison as evidence-gathering activities; and to record administrative burden, payment timing, predictability and possible threshold effects as distinct dimensions. These were process decisions only. They did not adopt a standard, endorse a tax rate or settle the design of any future relief.

18. The Chair closed by reminding members that reports should continue to describe practices rather than accuse or identify individual companies. The session record would summarize contributions without naming members’ businesses. No statements by CEOs, companies or public officials were presented as responses to the Council. Members were invited to submit further evidence through the established process before the next session.

Action items

• Secretariat: Preserve the distinction between council membership and session attendance in the published record; do not infer an attendance figure from the membership roll.

• Team Council evidence group: Review the cost-diary prompts to distinguish one-time, recurring and conditional payments, and to capture due dates, administrative time and registration steps. The review is for evidence collection only.

• Members submitting further evidence: Where possible, identify the size of the workforce, the timing and frequency of costs, and whether the reported difficulty concerned payment, registration, forecasting or more than one of these. Members should continue to omit their business names unless they choose a public seat.

• Chair: Bring the evidence gaps and the unchanged two-of-five-test status to the next session, without presenting discussion points as a draft standard or as a revised pattern-test result.

Sources

1. OECD, Taxing Wages 2026: Germany country note (2025 tax wedge figures).¹

2. International Labour Organization, Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME informality estimate).²

Notes and sources

Sources

1. OECD, Taxing Wages 2026: Germany country note
2. International Labour Organization, Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises