Posted Workers in Slovenia - Challenges for Employers

The single European labour market means that no barriers should be placed to the mobility of labour. Much of European legislation has been devoted to the free movement of labour, including legislation on posted workers. This paper is aimed to present the interim results of the POW-Bridge project (Bridging the gap between legislation and practice in the posting of workers)1 in the case of Slovenia. One of the goals of the POW-Bridge is to identify challenges for posting companies and find solutions for these challenges. Slovenia is a country with a relatively large number of outgoing posted workers and a relatively low number of incoming posted workers. The analysis of employer practices and challenges suggests that Slovene companies, especially small and medium sized ones which often lack knowledge and own resources, find the posting of workers a complex and lengthy process. Several challenges for employers have been identified: one of the most often stated is obtaining all the necessary legal information when companies post workers to the other EU countries and, consequently, complying with all the relevant legislation. Because of the complexity of regulation that the posting companies must comply with, many of them have reported resorting to hiring special services to help them in that matter. Along with the complexity of the legislation to follow, the language barrier when posting workers to other countries has also been emphasised. Following identification of the challenges companies are facing when posting their workers to other EU countries, recommendations and possible solutions in the posting process are presented.