Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 07/02/2022
The Act Amending the Fiscal Balance Act, which requires the Minister of Labour to adjust the student work hourly rate against the minimum wage annually, was adopted by the previous government.
On 21 January, the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) tweeted that the government led by Janez Janša had increased the hourly rate for student work. “Young people have an important place in the SDS,” they stressed.
In Slovenia, students can work through a scheme called ‘student work’. Student work allows temporary and part-time work for university students. They can work via a special type of contract called referrals, which can be obtained from employment agencies specialised for student work and are paid the hour of work.
The Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities set the minimum hourly rate for students at €6.17 gross and €5.21 net, an increase of 23 cents compared to the previous year, in the Order on the adjustment of the minimum hourly rate for an hour of temporary and casual work on 7 January.
The student work hourly rate may not be lower than the minimum wage calculated proportionally per hour of average full-time work, or 174 hours per month. The Minister of Labour must adjust the hourly rate for students with any development in the minimum wage as dictated by the Act Amending the Fiscal Balance Act, adopted by Members of Parliament in November 2019. The SDS parliamentary group did not cast votes on the act at the time.
Prior to the adoption of the last amending act, the gross hourly rate could not be lower than €4.5 and was set once a year by the Minister of Labour based on the average wage in the previous year.
The Act Amending the Fiscal Balance Act was put forward by the Levica parliamentary group in 2019, when the government was led by Marjan Šarec. When proposing the act, they explained that adjusting the student work hourly rate with the average wage is less favourable to students. From 2015 to 2019, the hourly rate increased by 8.6%, while the minimum wage increased by more than 12%.
Last February, Levica called for an emergency session of the Committee on Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Disability because of non-compliance with the new statutory provisions relating to the student work hourly rate. There, they accused the Minister of Labour Janez Cigler Kralj of failing to increase the hourly rate for student work when setting the minimum wage, and demanded compensation for income losses sustained by students.
The ministry told Razkrinkavanje.si that there was no legal basis to compensate income losses, as the law does not specify a minimum or maximum time limit for the minister to set the minimum hourly rate for student work.
The SDS did not respond to our findings.
SDS’s claim is manipulative.