THE ABUSE OF DEPENDENT WORK AND FALSE SELF-EMPLOYMENT

Abstrakt

Illegal employment represents a serious multidimensional issue with significant legal, economic, and social consequences. It undermines the integrity of the labour market, weakens employee social protection, and results in substantial losses in public revenue. The aim of this paper is to analyse the legal framework of illegal employment in the Slovak Republic, identify its most common forms, assess its impact on employers and employees, and evaluate the effectiveness of current control and sanction mechanisms. Special attention is paid to false self-employment (the so called Švarc system”), failure to register employees with the Social Insurance Agency, and employment of third-country nationals without a work permit. The research is based on a comparative legal analysis complemented by the interpretation of relevant legislation, judicial decisions, and secondary European legal sources. The applied methodology includes descriptive, comparative, and analytical methods, as well as a case-based approach. The paper compares Slovak regulations with approaches in the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and Poland, highlighting good practices and transferable elements for domestic improvement. To assess the effectiveness of the Slovak Republic’s current legal and institutional framework in combating illegal employment and to propose legal tools that could contribute to its more efficient suppression in practice. Existing legal instruments and enforcement mechanisms regarding illegal employment are insufficiently applied in Slovakia, enabling employers to circumvent the law without facing adequate consequences. In conclusion, the paper offers recommendations aimed at strengthening prevention, legal awareness, and transparency in business relations to improve the fight against illegal employment.