Slovak labour market still has reserves

What is the reality on the Slovak labour market? Agencies are crying that the market is exhausted and they see the only solution in importing foreigners. Yet is the Slovak labour market really exhausted?

The number of long-term unemployed is still high, but companies have given up on them. According to Alessandro Villa, general secretary of the Italian – Slovak Chamber of Commerce, the only people available on the market are the disabled or those who simply do not want to work.

Or are the cries about a lack of people only a banal argument used by HR agencies that find it easier to import people than search the whole country and use the last resources to recruit?

People who have been unemployed for a year or more have lost their working habits, or they never had any as they have never been employed. If they are healthy and still long-term unemployed then they often do not want to work because they do not have a reason to want to.

In most cases the lower level of education they have does not give them the opportunity to get a job that would pay more than the minimum wage.

Furthermore, the fact that the levels of the minimum wage and social benefits are so close produces the problem as to why employment is not interesting for many long-term unemployed, claims Michal Páleník from the Employment Institute.

Estimates indicate that in about five years time companies may need more people than the number of unemployed registered at employment offices.

M. Páleník calculated that it would be about 240 thousand. He based his calculations on the fact that employment was growing by about 2% and the GDP by about 7 to 10% a year. In his opinion this deficit can be covered from local sources.

He admits that the number of graduates has been falling due to weaker population growth and the higher number of university students. On the other hand, the pension age is increasing.

Published by Zuzana Polacikova