To return or not return?

What do Slovaks living and working in Ireland say about the possibility of moving back to Slovakia?

The next edition of Work in Slovakia – Good Idea! event will focus on health-care workers.The next edition of Work in Slovakia – Good Idea! event will focus on health-care workers. (Source: SME)

Faced with brain-drain some eastern European countries have tried various schemes to attract back their citizens who moved abroad. My home country Romania has a scheme offering starting capital of up to €40,000 to those Romanians wishing to come back and open a business in any locality. Apparently about 3,500 people were interested in applying last year, most of them scared by Brexit.

SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement
SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement

The food service industry is first in regards to areas in which returning Romanians would like to launch their business, followed by IT and the creative industry. Just in case you are wondering, Romania is hemorrhaging doctors and nurses and it needs them back badly more than any other group of emigrants. I mean back in hospitals and not running a pub (there is no shortage of pubs and restaurants in Romania, by the way).

SkryťTurn off ads
Read also: Government tried to lure Slovaks back from the UK. But the promotion was weak Read more 

Slovak authorities want to lure back their fellow skilled Slovaks living abroad. Faced with a shortage of IT experts in the Slovak market, the companies gathered under the umbrella of the Slovak IT Association have initiated a project called “Work in Slovakia – Good Idea!”’, supported by the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Investments and Informatisation. In January it organized its first job fair in London, which was attended by 127 people – “with 3 to 7 of them already in various phases of the recruitment process”, according to organisers.

Another job fair is scheduled for May 18 at the Slovak Embassy in Dublin. This time health-care personnel should have been targeted, but by the time this text was published the Slovak Health Ministry had yet to offer some details in this respect, including an estimate on how many Slovak doctors and nurses work in Ireland.

The rest of this article is premium content at Spectator.sk
Subscribe now for full access

I already have subscription - Sign in

Subscription provides you with:
  • Immediate access to all locked articles (premium content) on Spectator.sk
  • Special weekly news summary + an audio recording with a weekly news summary to listen to at your convenience (received on a weekly basis directly to your e-mail)
  • PDF version of the latest issue of our newspaper, The Slovak Spectator, emailed directly to you
  • Access to all premium content on Sme.sk and Korzar.sk

Top stories

Janka, a blogger, during the inauguration of the first flight to Athens with Aegean Airlines at the airport in Bratislava on September 14, 2023.

A Czech rail operator connects Prague and Ukraine, Dominika Cibulková endorses Pellegrini, and Bratislava events.


Píšem or pišám?

"Do ľava," (to the left) I yelled, "Nie, do prava" (no, to the right), I gasped. "Dolšie," I screamed. "Nie, nie, horšie..." My Slovak girlfriend collapsed in laughter. Was it something I said?


Matthew J. Reynolds
Czech biochemist Jan Konvalinka.

Jan Konvalinka was expecting a pandemic before Covid-19 came along.


SkryťClose ad