Premier: Employing Foreigners in Slovakia Must Be Speeded Up

Bratislava, August 28 (TASR) – Due to the shortage of labour in the country, Slovakia needs to adopt a number of measures in the area of the controlled import of labour, including a measure that will cut the time needed for companies to hire foreigners, stated Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) on Tuesday after talks about the lack of labour in the country.

“Our factories need to respond very quickly to demand, so individual ministers were given specific tasks at the meeting. Over the next two weeks all the state authorities that have something to do with approving the influx of labour from abroad, including the Foreign Police, the Interior Ministry, the Labour Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry, are set to submit a package of further measures aimed at facilitating the whole process without these being strictly of a legislative nature,” said the premier.

“The situation in Slovakia is rather critical at the moment,” added Pellegrini, noting that if the country doesn’t speed up processes for accepting foreign employees, Slovakia could lose its competitiveness vis-a-vis surrounding countries.

“However, we won’t adopt measures that would deteriorate the conditions for Slovak employees, which means that we won’t tolerate any social dumping…,” said the premier, adding that the import of foreign labour will be monitored, and companies will have to employ foreigners under the same conditions as those provided to Slovak employees and only in professions for which Slovakia lacks labour. The premier went on to say that he hopes that the short-term measures that will soon be introduced will make a significant and positive contribution to Slovakia’s industry and its employers.

Pellegrini added that the Government also wants to work with long-term unemployed Slovaks, including the Roma, and find ways to put this group on the labour market.

First vice-president of the Republican Union of Employers (RUZ) Mario Lelovsky, who also took part in the meeting, said that various associations of employers have submitted to the Government a series of legislative and non-legislative measures aimed at addressing the issue of labour shortages. “We’ll provide cooperation and experience to all ministries,” he said, adding that RUZ will make sure that the relevant ministries will receive their proposals and requirements.