Slovak firms hire Romanies, but complain about low qualification

Slovak companies do not avoid employing Romanies, but they complain about their low education and insufficient qualification, a survey conducted by CTK showed today.

The employers said that Romanies only exceptionally had complete secondary education in the area required.

The U.S. Steel Kosice works in 2002 launched a project aiming at the employment of people who had been unemployed for a long time. A majority of Slovak Romanies are among the long-term unemployed.

"We were motivated by the nearly one-hundred-percent unemployment of Romanies in the nearby municipality Velka Ida," U.S. Steel Kosice spokesman Jan Baca said.

As the project was successful and some of the locals received a job, it was later applied also at the ill-famed Kosice housing estate Lunik IX, known for problems related to high unemployment, poverty and bad living conditions.

At present, some 150 Romanies work at the steelworks.

Baca said the company wanted to continue with the project focusing on Romanies.

Romanies are employed also by Whirlpool in Poprad, east Slovakia. Last year, the company gave jobs to 35 Romanies and after nearly a year 28 of them continue to work for it.

In west Slovakia, experience with employing Romanies is varied. Jana Ciganekova from the Equimont construction company in Bratislava said that a reliable Romany has been working for them for several years, but that they had to sack a group of unreliable Romany labourers.

Dusan Dvorak, spokesman for the KIA Motors Slovakia car maker, said the company did not inquire about the ethnic origin of job applicants and new employees. The KIA plant is based in Zilina, central Slovakia.

"We do not want to discriminate against any group of inhabitants. If applicants meet the professional criteria, we employ them," Dvorak said.

Matador tyre-maker from Puchov, too, said they were interested first of all in the applicant’s qualification and work discipline.

According to estimates, some 400,000 Romanies live in the 5-million Slovakia, mainly in the eastern part of the country. About one third of the Romanies live in Romany shanty settlements.