Opportunities: The Slovenian labour market and policy environment

This chapter discusses some key features of the policy environment in Slovenia, to help understanding of current labour market outcomes and activation policy challenges and of the large impact of the recent recession. These features include among other things the relatively high minimum wage legally required or tax-exempt allowances paid to employees and non-standard forms of work and their regulation. The chapter looks at how these issues as well as benefits and benefit conditionality may interact, e.g. the minimum wage may encourage the use of fixed-term contracts, while benefit entitlements from fixed-term contracts encourage repeat unemployment. The chapter also describes the social and labour market reform path Slovenia has followed since its independence and the recent partial breakdown of social dialogue.