Changing labour market demand and moving up the global value chain requires high-skilled workers. However, the share of adults with high skill levels in the Slovak Republic is one of the lowest in the OECD. Improving the education system would raise quality and better align students’ skills with new labour market needs and help them face further changes in the work environment. The contribution of the tertiary education system to skills improvement is one of the lowest in the OECD. It has to open itself more to the outside world: by easing the conditions for foreign professors and researchers to teach at Slovak universities, promoting internationally respected research and intensifying the cooperation with the business sector. Another challenge is to secure an adequate supply of skilled workers in the face of rapid population ageing and increasing emigration of young high-skilled workers. Ageing of the population will not only lead to shrinking labour supply, but a growing part of the workforce will need to be retrained. Bolstering the supply of skills requires lifelong learning and attracting skilled migrants, including returning Slovaks.

This Working Paper relates to the 2017 OECD Economic Survey of the Slovak Republic (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-slovak-republic.htm).