One in three entrepreneurs feel their business has been negatively influenced after the changes to work contracts were introduced in the beginning of this year. Approximately the same percentage of respondents (34.4%) evaluated the impact of the new rules as only slightly negative. Close to none of the polled entrepreneurs, less than 1% of respondents, perceived the changes positively. Neutral to the changes in conditions of work agreement were 31.3% of entrepreneurs. This is the outcome of a survey by the Business Alliance of Slovakia (PAS), which included 131 businesspersons.
According to Labour Minister Ján Richter, the current setting of insurance premiums of contract agents is only a temporary solution. "It'll be the way it is for three years," said the minister adding that he would welcome it if the number of people working via such an arrangement dropped, and the people would be employed via standard job contracts, as this would mean a higher number of stable jobs in the end. The current system should be re-evaluated after the launch of the unified system of tax and premium collection UNITAS in 2016. The former labour minister Jozef Mihal (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) who was also present at the discussion argued the Government is unable to introduce a single thing benefiting ordinary people –“UNITAS is a project that Slovakia needs badly. Why are you putting it off by three years?" asked Mihal. You'd better go ask (former finance minister) Ivan Mikloš, he botched it up. The question is whether it was wilful or unintentional and whether perhaps a law has been violated," said Richter [referring to the collapse of the electronicized tax system which at the end of 2011 meant the clerks had to do the work by hand].
Lucia Pazičová
