Youth Labour Market in Slovakia: From Education to Self-Employment

The aim of the paper is to provide an insight into the relation between the educationsystem in Slovakia and position of young people on the labour market after finishing their studies,with special focus on the readiness of young people to start their self-employment. Design/methodology/approach: The research is based on the analysis of secondary data,searching for relationship between the youth unemployment rate and number of self-entrepreneursin the group of young people under 30 years. The reason of the analysis is to find out if self-employment could be interpreted as a solution to the problem of high youth unemployment rate. Findings: There is logical assumption that increase in the self-employment activity of youngpeople is connected with the decrease of their unemployment rate. The correlation analysis forSlovak data proves negative relation between those two. It seems that the exerted effort to prepareand motivate young people to become entrepreneurs has positive effects on the labour market andSlovak economy as a whole. Research/practical implications: The further research is needed, but already from the presentedpartial results could be clearly seen the need for bigger linking of education system with practiceand greater emphasis on acquiring business skills during studies. Originality/value: The paper contains the partial results of the research which contributes to thediscussion of how education system can lead to improvement of the position of young people onthe labour market.