Slovenia
The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity.
This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments.
It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.
The paper is the second in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The first paper is titled ‘Young people’s environmental sustainability competence: Emotional, cognitive, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions in EU and OECD countries.
Slovenia’s population is set to age rapidly in the coming decades. This demographic trend will increasingly put pressure on already fragile public finances as age related expenditure is projected to rise by 3 percentage points of GDP by the year 2030. Ensuring debt sustainability and generational equity requires reforms of social support systems and necessitates adjustments in labour markets. Policy makers will thus need to act more strongly than in the past to rein in ageing-related outlays, pursue efficiency-enhancing restructurings of health and long-term care systems, and adopt measures to strengthen labour force participation. In particular, further increases in the relatively low pension age in line with the rise in life expectancy would reduce pension costs and the burden on the active population. Better utilisation of medical resources and co-ordinated purchasing of medical supplies would curb health care expenditure, while a dedicated funding mechanism for long-term care would enhance the sustainability of the system. Moreover, removing incentives for early retirement in combination with active labour market policies would increase the labour force participation rates of older workers from its currently very low levels.
This chapter reviews the processes for developing new regulations in Slovenia, with special attention to forward planning and trends; administrative procedures and legal quality; ex ante impact assessment; and considering alternatives to regulation.
This paper investigates the demand for language skills using data on online job vacancies in 27 European Union member countries and the United Kingdom in 2021. Evidence indicates that although Europe remains a linguistically diverse labour market, knowing English confers unique advantages in certain occupations. Across countries included in the analyses, a knowledge of English was explicitly required in 22% of all vacancies and English was the sixth most required skill overall. A knowledge of German, Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese was explicitly demanded in between 1% and 2% of all vacancies. One in two positions advertised on line for managers or professionals required some knowledge of English, on average across European Union member countries and across OECD countries in the sample. This compares with only one in ten positions for skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers and among elementary occupations.
This chapter identifies the drivers of regulatory policy and assesses the communication with stakeholders on strategy and policies. It also looks at the policies, processes and institutions for evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of programmes and policies aimed at improving the regulatory environment. It also briefly reviews the role of e‑government in support of regulatory policy and governance.
Slovenia’s sickness insurance programme faces very large take‑up, with a high and fast increasing share of long-term absences and a continuous increase in the share of mental health cases. Long-term absence is particularly widespread among older workers who increasingly use the sickness insurance as a pathway to retirement. These developments are explained largely by the very characteristics of the sickness insurance programme: the lack of a time limit for very generous benefits, and the lack of any return-to-work attempts and services. New analysis presented in this chapter shows that early intervention is critical and that the likelihood of a return to work false sharply with the duration of sickness absence: those absent for over a year hardly ever return to the labour market. Without significant reform, these problems will get out of hand.
Slovenia has one of the largest disability benefit caseloads in OECD countries: despite a gradual decline in the past 15 years, still almost one in ten people of working age receive a disability payment. This high share is surprising because the average payment is relatively low (not least due to considerable insurance requirements) and because disability insurance can turn away applicants with incomplete medical treatment and rehabilitation. Without the backlog for health treatments and without unlimited sickness insurance, the disability caseload would arguably be even larger. The system faces two major obstacles. First, it is complex and offers a number of different payments depending on age, degree of work capacity and eligibility for vocational rehabilitation. Second, vocational rehabilitation is built into the system but take‑up is almost negligible because the support is coming too late. The system leaves many with very low payment and no return-to-work perspective. Only comprehensive reform can fix this.
This edition of the Reader’s Companion accompanies Skills Matter: Additional Results from the Survey of Adult Skills that reports the results from the 39 countries and regions that participated in the 3 rounds of data collection in the first cycle of PIAAC, with a particular focus on the 6 countries that participated in the third round of the study (Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru and the United States). It describes the design and methodology of the survey and its relationship to other international assessments of young students and adults.
The Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), was designed to provide insights into the availability of some key skills in society and how they are used at work and at home. The first survey of its kind, it directly measures proficiency in several information-processing skills – namely literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments.
This chapter gives a brief overview of the Slovenian tax system for road transport. It describes the different taxes that are levied on the three relevant tax bases (energy use, vehicle stock and road use), their rates and scope in 2017 as well as the associated revenues that were collected throughout 2017.