Unemployment Rate in Slovakia at 5.94 percent in December 2017

Bratislava, January 22 (TASR) – The unemployment rate in Slovakia in December 2017 stood at 5.94 percent, down by 0.01 percentage points (p.p.) month-on-month and by 2.82 p.p. year-on-year, said Labour, Social Affairs and the Family Centre (UPSVaR) general director Marian Valentovic at a press conference on Monday with Labour Minister Jan Richter (Smer-SD) in attendance.

The number of jobseekers immediately able to take up a job was 161,915 in December, a decrease of 172 individuals m-o-m and of 76,062 y-o-y, said Valentovic.

The unemployment rate calculated from the total number of jobseekers reached 7.18 percent in December, down by 0.01 p.p. m-o-m and by 2.98 p.p. y-o-y, he added.

The total number of jobseekers reached 195,583 in the final month of 2017, falling by 472 individuals m-o-m and by 80,548 y-o-y.

As for individual regions, four out of the eight Slovak regions recorded cuts in their unemployment rates in December, with Bratislava and Presov regions seeing the most significant drops of 0.07 p.p. The highest unemployment rate in December was recorded in Kosice region (9.94 percent).

In terms of districts, the highest unemployment rate was in Rimavska Sobota – 18.48 percent, while Trnava was at the opposite end of the scale on 1.98 percent.

“As expected, in December we recorded a slight decline in the recruitment process by employers, which resulted in a slight decrease of 5,256 job vacancies reported to labour offices. So, a total of 69,375 job vacancies were available to jobseekers, representing a year-on-year increase of 34,091,” said Valentovic, adding that the highest number of jobs was available in Bratislava region (15,537), while the lowest was in Banska Bystrica region (4,613).