"The paper analyses the economic and protective functions of labour law. The author examines in detail how these functions are expressed in legal regulation considering working time. The purposes of this paper are to define various examples of flexibility in regulating working time, to demonstrate how employees are protected in these cases and how the interests of employers are secured.

Both institutions of the EU, and the member states have recently made a particular emphasis on the tasks of ensuring flexibility and security in labour law. Therefore, the specific provisions of labour law must provide a regulation of appropriate issues of employment relationships which would create preconditions for businesses to establish new workplaces. Meanwhile, the guarantees of social security of employees may not be reduced. Notably, such changes are first and foremost aimed at by regulating the time of work and rest. This is the most flexibility-sensitive area of labour law. However, introduction of more flexible provisions of organisation of working time directly causes a proportionate decrease of employees' security. Thus, a search for compromise in this respect is a task of utmost importance for the law maker in each state.

The author concludes that working time in Bulgaria is regulated by balancing protection of employees and the needs of employers in the present-day market. However, the legislator should try to strike balance between the needs of both parties to employment relationships. Thus, the greatest attention in this case should be paid to the instruments of social dialogue and to the bargaining for working time regulation."

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