Temporary agency work, agentúrne zamestnávanie, is the arrangement in which a licensed agency employs a person for the sole purpose of assigning them to work for someone else. Slovak law splits the employer in two: the agency holds the contract and pays the wage, while the user undertaking sets the tasks, supervises the work and answers for health and safety on its floor. Sections 58 to 58b of the Labour Code govern the assignment, Act 5/2004 licenses the agency, and neither leaves much to negotiation: equal pay with the user’s own comparable employee applies from the first hour, and the assignment itself runs on a statutory clock of 24 months.
The three-party structure
Ordinary employment has two parties. Temporary agency work has three, and the geometry is fixed by statute, not by the contracts. Section 29(1) of Act 5/2004 on employment services defines the agency: a legal or natural person that employs a person for the purpose of assigning them to a user undertaking in Slovakia, to work under that user’s supervision and direction. The employment contract sits between agency and worker. The commercial agreement sits between agency and user. The work itself happens inside the user’s operation.
The Labour Code splits the employer’s role along that triangle. Under section 58(8), the user assigns tasks, directs and controls the work, and answers for health and safety exactly as it does for its own staff. What the user cannot do is act legally on the agency’s behalf. Its managers cannot amend, extend or terminate the worker’s employment. Under section 58(9), the agency pays the wage. The split is clean on paper and porous in practice. That is why the code then attaches several of the agency’s failures to the user, starting with pay.
Who may operate an agency
The activity requires a permit. Section 29(3) of Act 5/2004 conditions the licence on integrity, on the absence of tax and levy arrears, on suitable premises, and on a university degree held by the applicant or its responsible representative. The central office of labour keeps a public register of licensed agencies under section 29(11). One prohibition is worth quoting in any negotiation: under section 29(2) the agency may not charge the worker anything, neither for the assignment nor for signing a permanent contract with the user afterwards. Its remuneration comes from the user undertaking, in the agreed amount.
The licence is also mortal. Under section 31(2) it is revoked where the agency assigned nobody for a whole year, where it failed to file its annual activity report or filed untrue data, or where it was fined for illegal employment. Enforcement has teeth: in May 2026 the labour ministry reported that 441 licensed agencies remain on the register, down from more than 600, after an inspection wave in which 114 inspectors checked 173 agencies in a single week and recorded suspected illegal employment at 71 of them. Checking the register, and checking that the licence number appears in the assignment agreement, is the cheapest piece of due diligence in the whole arrangement.
What the contracts must contain
Two documents carry the structure. The first sits between the agency and the worker. Under section 58(5) it must name the user, the start date and duration of the assignment, the type and place of work, the wage conditions and the conditions of early termination. The second sits between the agency and the user. Section 58a(2) fixes its mandatory contents: the worker’s identity, the type of work and its health prerequisites, the duration and place of the assignment, the conditions of the comparable employee, the grounds of early termination, and, in letter (h), the number and date of the agency’s licence. Under section 58a(3) this agreement is void unless made in writing.
Around the two contracts sit standing duties. Under section 58(14) the user must tell the agency what its comparable employee earns, because the equal-pay rule cannot be operated blind. Under section 58a(4) the agency must hand back, on request, the data the user needs to check what was actually paid. And under section 58(16) the user keeps its own register of every assigned worker with the agency’s identity and the start and end dates – a record labour inspectors ask for first.
The limits built into the instrument
Three limits define where the instrument works and where it stops. The first is time: under section 58(6) an assignment may be agreed for 24 months at most and may be extended or renewed at most four times within those 24 months, counted against the same user undertaking even where a different agency supplies the worker. Breach converts the arrangement under section 58(7): the agency employment ends by law and an employment of indefinite duration arises directly with the user.
The second is danger: under section 58(1) no assignment may be agreed for work the public health authority has classified in the 4th risk category. The third is disguise. Under section 58(2), work is presumed to be a temporary assignment wherever a contractor’s people work mainly on the client’s premises, mainly with the client’s equipment, under the client’s direction, in an activity the client has registered as its own business. A packing subcontractor inside a hall usually fails all three prongs at once. The presumption then pulls the whole regime over an arrangement that was labelled a service contract precisely to avoid it.
Temporary agency work for an industrial occupier
For a warehouse or plant, temporary agency work is the middle instrument between hiring and outsourcing. It solves seasonality and vacancy risk. It does so at the user’s own wage level, because equal pay removes the labour-cost arbitrage by design. The occupier keeps the operational load: direction, safety, the register, the equal-pay comparison, and the conversion risk at the end of the clock. The occupier sheds recruitment, severance exposure and the fixed headcount.
The planning consequences are concrete. An agency layer cannot be a permanent tier of the shift plan. The clock and the renewal count force a decision on every individual within two years. What that clock, the equal-pay comparison and the licence enforcement wave do to a shift plan in practice, we work through in our post on agency labour in Slovak logistics. The commercial rate has to be read against the comparator role in the user’s own payroll, not against the market. And the choice of agency is a compliance decision as much as a commercial one. A revoked licence or an underpaid crew lands on the user’s desk, not the agency’s. Where none of that fits, the alternatives sit at the two ends of the spectrum: full outsourcing to a logistics provider, or automation that takes the headcount out of the building.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the employer of an agency worker?
The agency. It holds the employment contract and pays the wage under section 58(9). The user undertaking directs the work and answers for health and safety on its premises under section 58(8), but it cannot make legal acts concerning the employment itself.
Is equal pay required from the first day?
Yes. Section 58(9) requires conditions at least as favourable as those of a comparable employee of the user from the start of the assignment. Slovak law has no ramp-up period. If the agency pays less, section 58(10) obliges the user to pay the difference within 15 days of the agreed pay date.
How long can an assignment last?
24 months at most, with at most four extensions or renewals within that window, counted per user undertaking – switching agencies does not restart the count. Beyond the limit, section 58(7) converts the arrangement into an indefinite employment with the user by operation of law.
Can the user hire the worker permanently afterwards?
Yes, and the path is protected twice. Section 58b of the Labour Code voids any contract term that bans or obstructs the user from employing the worker after the assignment, and section 29(2) of Act 5/2004 forbids the agency from charging the worker a fee for such a move.
Can agencies assign workers from outside the EU?
Only within narrow rails. Under section 21(4) of Act 5/2004, an agency must have operated for at least three years before it may assign a third-country national holding a residence permit for employment, and only into occupations with a documented labour shortage in that region. Under section 21(6), assigned third-country nationals count towards the 45 % workforce ceiling of the user, not of the agency.