The article discusses the implementation of the global concepts of smart city or smart municipality at the local level, focusing on the importance of mayor as a leader and his competencies in this context. The status of elected representatives of self-government in the branch of labour law is legislatively only marginally regulated, with insufficient terminological and functional interconnection between special legislation and labour law. The aim of the authors is to point out the relationship between the current legislation on prelegal relations between the mayor and his leadership duties and powers and to identify barriers in the implementation of the concept of smart cities in the Slovak Republic. The objective of the scientific study is determined based directly on current needs and emerging practical issues. Understanding and applying these correctly has a fundamental impact on the possibilities of rules in local government. Methodologically, our research relies on the basic methods of scientific abstraction in the context of the analysis of de lege lata legislation with a thorough application of the methods of legal logic. The authors draw attention to the partial questions of the labour status and educational census of the Mayor of the Municipality in the context of smart city concept and propose solutions.

Tax sovereignty is now an expression of the phenomenon of state power. In general, there is a widespread but also accepted view that a citizen is dependent on the state and the state is dependent on tax resources. The social status of a citizen in the state is of great importance; it affects the development of personality and, last but not least, reflects the degree of democracy acquired in a particular state. Various tax law measures for the benefit of the citizen are important for the identification of social behavior and are an attempt to improve certain ways of life. The aim and ambition of this article is to emphasize the tools of social policy (e.g., minimum wage, subsistence minimum, social right to work) that are related to the social function of taxing income. In this context, the authors deal with a social function of tax collection and imposing of taxes, justice in taxation, and point out social aspects of the system of taxes in the Slovak Republic. In this article, the authors present the attitudes of both critics and proponents. It also deals with tax justice, which is often a category subjective to the evaluator. The benchmarking attribute of tax collection should be that citizens will have the certainty of social justice in the state and will therefore pay attention to the minimum wage and subsistence minimum as an integral part of tax policy under the legal conditions of the Slovak Republic. All tax legislation, especially tax reform, is perceived with a certain sensitivity regarding tax subjects.

The main role of public administration is to administrate public affairs. All of the functions in this field are realised by employees carrying out the dependent work. Public administration, as an employer, has to fulfil the demand of stability and attractiveness of public sector employment. For the purposes of the study our attention focuses on a large group of public employees, namely teachers in public universities in Slovakia. Legislative regulation of the employment of university teachers is alarming. The paper analyses Slovak legislation of time-terminated employment contracts with university teachers and its unlimited repetition. The authors, supported by settled case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, assess the legislation in substance and critically, but also point to its potential impact on the private life, social security and health of these employees, i.e. psychological aspects. Descriptive analysis aimed at assessing quantitative changes in individual groups of university teachers according to the highest level of qualification was used to express trends in the development of quantitative indicators characterizing selected aspects of employment of university teachers (assistant, assistant professor, associate professor, professor). Legislation on the employment of university teachers under the conditions of the Slovak Republic raises considerations of unequal treatment of two categories of university teachers (associate professors and professors) when compared to the category of assistants and assistant professors. For this reason, an analysis of the age structure of university teachers according to the highest qualifi cations was carried out. The analyses were carried out using data from the Center of Scientific and Technical Information of the Slovak Republic (CVTI SR) and the Register of University Employees maintained by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic. The study was conducted for the reference term of 2011–2019. Through our analysis, we have identified a downward trend in the number of university teachers qualified as assistant professors in the 40–49 age category, and this change does not reflect the increase in the number of associate professors in the same age category. The group of university teachers in this age category then becomes vulnerable/disadvantaged in the labor market, which has serious social consequences for the employees themselves and provides a picture of the university environment in terms of legislation.

A qualitative positive shift in regional development largely depends on human resources that create value and transform other development factors. A signifi cant part of the emerging regional disparities in individual national economies also causes disparities in regional development at the achieved level of employment and unemployment. One of the signifi cant quantifi able negative impacts on the level of regional development is the decline in gross domestic product as a key indicator of the economic progress of the country. Th e unimportant impact of the growth of unemployment is the decrease in economic growth both in the short and long term. Due to the fact that one of the goals of public administration organisations is to ensure the continuous positive economic and social development of the administered territory, the problem of identifying the dominant development trends in the labor market from the legislative and economic point of view can be considered highly topical. Th e main focus of the study is to analyze selected economic and legislative aspects of unemployment through the selected instruments of employment policy in the labor market and in the context of changes in gross domestic product. We used quantitative data characterizing the labor market and the economic development of the regions as well as the valid legislative norms as part of the desk-based analysis. To prove the dependence of the unemployment rate on real growth and vice versa, we used the theory of Okun´s law. Applying Eurostat data, we analyzed labour markets in the Czech and Slovak Republic. Th e labour market situation is examined in the context of the development of selected labor market indicators from LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT Public Administration Issues. 2019. Special Issue I 28-member states of the EU, collected from 2007-2016. Th e calculated regression model shows that the Czech Republic unemployment rate is more dependent on variation in real GDP growth rate than the Slovak one. Th e authors are worried that on the other hand, the trend of increasing the number of people of productive age plus the extension of the retirement age can act as a problem in terms of long-term unemployment and the imbalance on the labour market. Th e question of regularly increasing retirement (and its possible cessation) is a current problem in the Slovak Republic and also in the Czech Republic. And in this context, it could be also said that the current employment policy implemented in both countries does not satisfactorily refl ects the merits of addressing the issues of unemployment.

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