Cheap foreign workforce sparks discussions

The employment of foreigners in Slovakia must be made more expensive in order to stop them being more economically advantageous to employers than Slovak workers, thinks Deputy Labour Minister Branislav Ondruš. "We drafted a bill due to introduce a further set of obligations for every Slovak firm employing a foreigner," said Ondruš. Under the new legislation, aside from the payment of wages, employers will also need to provide such foreign workers with housing. According to opposition MP Milan Krajniak of the We're Family party, the Government has neglected the issue of foreigners and has let big employers pull the wool over its eyes with their cries about the lack of a qualified labour force, which is a lie. In reality, there is a sufficient amount of qualified labour in Slovakia, but, unfortunately, it has been forced to seek jobs abroad due to salary conditions," said Krajniak. He pointed out statistics, according to which the growth in salaries in the past year was the slowest in Slovakia among all neighbouring countries, notwithstanding the fact that Slovak salaries have been undervalued in comparison to the economic productivity to begin with. On the other hand, according to research conducted by the AKO agency in December 2017, the willingness of the unemployed Slovaks to travel to work has decreased by 5% to less than 57%.