Slovakia: Education, Personnel and Labor Market
Volkswagen, U.S. Steel and Samsung were among Slovakia’s top six companies by revenue in 2004. They are all satisfied in Slovakia. Volkswagen and Samsung are among the top 20 companies with the largest investments into its Slovak branch and all three are in the top 20 in after tax profit for the same year. They all praise Slovakia’s highly qualified, inexpensive and readily available labor. In 2003 Slovakia clearly showed the highest education level for a workforce in Europe: 94.1% of young people aged 20-24 attained at least upper secondary education level.
The young people have the opportunity to study on Slovakia’s 18 Universities and six Universities of Technology. Most of them are public without scholarship. Government financially covers all educational costs of Universities as well as public basic and secondary school with 5% of GDP (0.71% on Universities). In 2006 6,826 students graduated in technology, in social sciences 8,906 students and in natural sciences 2,786 students.
Slovakia has a large pool of underutilized, talented individuals in the fields of science and technology. The country leads the CEE region in scientific and engineering talent, with 1,844 scientists and engineers in research & development per one million people. By comparison, the ratio in the Czech Republic is 1,349, in Hungary 1,445, in Poland 1,429, and in Romania only 913. Because of the small size of the country and locally small R&D budgets, many top Slovak science and technology professionals have to choose between inconvenient relocation to pursue better paying opportunities abroad or often unchallenging, local jobs with low salaries. Several foreign high-tech companies have already recognized these opportunities. World-leading IT firms such as Oracle, HP, IBM, SAP, SUN, Microsoft and Siemens are already well established and growing in Slovakia.
The level of knowledge of foreign languages is still increasing. Every third person in Slovakia communicates in German, 25% of the population communicates in English or Russian. 14% of the population communicates in Hungarian. One third of Slovak society speaks two foreign languages. The situation is better with people under 30 years: 75% people speak English and 47% German.
In 2006 average wage was 18,761 SKK per month (approximately 570 EUR). Since 1st of October 2007 minimal wage is 8,100 SKK per month. Income tax for personnel is flat at 19%. The social security contribution is 13.4% of wage, also employer together with employee contributes to pension system with 28.75% (employee 7% and employer 21.75%). It means if an employee has a gross salary of 20,000 SKK per month, the costs for the employer (together with social security and pension system) are 27,000 SKK per month (app. 35% of the gross salary of the employee). This belongs to regular fulltime labor contracts. The labor contract has to contain working activities (tasks), place of work, date of starting, salary conditions, pay day, working time, paid leave days and term of notice. The usual trial period is three months.
Usual working time in Slovakia is eight hours per day and 40 hours per week. According to labor code employees can work overtime, but only 400 hours per year. Workers, technicians and other employees in manufacturing, who do shift work, change shifts at 6 am, 2 pm and 10 pm. Other employees, who are working flexible time, usually work from 9 am to 5 pm.
In Slovakia there are 15 days of bank holiday. The employees have four weeks of paid leave per year according to labor code, after 15 years of work experience it is five weeks per year.
