What harms Slovakia’s competitiveness?

Slovakia’s competitiveness keeps dropping. The latest World Competitiveness Yearbook, published by the IMD World Competitiveness Center, ranks the country at 55^th place, down four positions compared to the previous year.

The Swiss-based institute cooperated in preparing the report with the Slovak think-tank F. A. Hayek Foundation.

The biggest challenges the country’s competitiveness ability will face in the following years is the lack of a qualified labour force, the high bureaucratic burden of companies, the upcoming digitisation of companies, high costs in recruiting and dismissing employees, and the absence of reforms in education and public services, the SITA newswire reported.

The worst in the V4

Slovakia received the worst ranking among its Visegrad Group (V4) partners. The Czech Republic reported the best placement, which ranked 29^th (down one post). Poland placed 34^th (up by four positions), while Hungary is 37^th (up by five places).

“We have to remember that Slovakia belonged among highly competitive countries in 2007-2009 (30^th place), which we failed to maintain in the following years,” the F. A. Hayek Foundation said, as quoted by SITA.