Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said at Davos that Slovakia could become a country that will experiment with a four-day working week. It is a flattering topic and so several media immediately picked up on it.
The Liberalni Institute calculated that with an average wage of CZK 40,086, the total cost per employee is 63% higher, i.e. CZK 65,376. This is the second year of the Cost of an Employee project, which the Liberalni Institut publishes in cooperation with the Slovak think tank INESS and the German FNF Foundation. The aim of the project is to calculate the total cost of a job for different types of employees.
The growing energy costs play an important role for the increase of the overall consumer price indices during the last couple months and threatens a maintenance of high inflation rates during the entire 2022.
In Slovakia, the minimum wage has become a political evergreen of every autumn. However, its growth has been rapidly increasing in recent years. Moreover, the former Slovak prime minister has proposed a new law, which will set the minimum wage at 60% of an average wage of the previous year.
The ruling politicians are unfortunately going in the opposite direction. While a person working for a minimum wage in 2015 paid 29% in taxes and levies, with the planned minimum wage, they will pay more than 40% next year.
The Polish Parliamentarians, Ministers, the Prime Minister, and the President are all normal employees. The only difference is that they have been hired by the public. For their work, an adequate remuneration should be paid.
