The Impact of the Industry 4.0 Concept on Slovak Business Sustainability within the Issue of the Pandemic Outbreak

Abstract

Many studies have found that the most significant job structure changes in the Slovak business environment can be expected in production and logistics. The biggest manpower shortages are in the fields of mechanical engineering, production, construction, information sciences and communication technologies, and medical sciences. The smallest manpower shortage can be found in the humanities and social science areas. The main objective of this research was to assess the trends within the Slovak labor market from the perspective of the companies that participated in a survey focused on their assumptions on job structure changes in the context of the implementation of the elements of Industry 4.0. The estimation was based on a questionnaire conducted during the spring months of 2020 with the participation of 175 companies and institutions. The results showed that one third of companies anticipate job cuts in the implementation of smart industry. Along with the job position disposal and the qualified staffs’ need for new jobs, the demands of employers regarding the level of education are growing. On the other hand, three quarters of companies are not only willing but also ready to participate in human resource vocational training and requalification focused mainly on technical skills.

The impact of firm size on environmental sustainability: The assessment based on the analysis of cost structure

“…Given its core principles, Industry 4.0 creates a range of opportunities for improvements in environmental sustainability and, at the same time, increases the potential of small business. Some results of the Industry 4.0 implementation demonstrates that small companies largely maintain the number of persons employed, while medium‐sized and especially large companies have to cut their jobs (Grenčíková et al, 2021). This underscores the competitive advantages of small manufacturing firms from the environmental sustainability perspective.…”

Evaluation Model of Business Sustainability Analysis and Consolidation of Existing Approaches

“…(Ejiogu et al, 2020;Stopcoronavirus.rf, 2021). Other trends that were seemingly spurred on by COVID-19 concern reduction of human labor and growing significance of technical skills of personnel (Grenčíková et al, 2021;Schislyaeva & Plis, 2021).…”

HRM challenges in Slovakia generated by the Covid-19 pandemic

“…The pandemic and the imposed government measures to curb it have only reinforced the already prevailing labor market trends (Grencikova et al, 2021;Nagurney, 2021), namely the widespread use of online tools, remote work, work from home and online education. Moreover, the new situation accelerated changes in the economic structure, namely the growing role of services in income generation and employment in terms of the emergence of automated solutions: replacing human labor with the use of artificial intelligence in such fields as customer services with learning bots, application-based services or big data.…”

“…The pandemic and the imposed government measures to curb it have only reinforced the already prevailing labor market trends (Grencikova et al. , 2021; Nagurney, 2021), namely the widespread use of online tools, remote work, work from home and online education.…”