Slovenia sees a decline in joblessness in February

Ljubljana – After three months of growth, Slovenia’s registered unemployment total dropped by 3.8% in February to 88,051. Still, the number of people registered with the Employment Service as being out of a job is 13.6% higher than the same month a year ago.

On another positive note, the number of newly registered unemployed fell month-on-month as well as year-on-year as the number of those who found a job increased.

The Employment Service registered 4,766 freshly unemployed in February, 54.7% fewer than January and 7.8% fewer than the same month a year ago.

Most of the freshly unemployed, 2,490, saw their fixed-term jobs expire, 1,025 were made redundant, 399 were first job seekers and 42 lost their job because their company went into receivership. Figures were down on the month before and a year ago in all categories.

Out of the 8,214 who were removed from the unemployment register, 6,657 found a job or became self-employed, a rise of 44.4% on the month before and 14.1% more than a year ago.

Most of them were secretaries, shop assistants, manual manufacturing workers, pre-school teachers, construction workers and sales agents.

All Employment Service offices across the country reported a monthly decline in joblessness.

Compared with February 2020, the figures were down only in Murska Sobota (-3.1%) and Velenje (-1.3%). Elsewhere, the unemployed count rose, the most in the regional units of Koper (+24.2%), Nova Gorica (+23.4%), Ptuj (+22.7%) and Kranj (+21.7%).

The latest available data put the country’s registered unemployment rate in December 2020 at 8.9%, up 0.3 percentage points from November and up 1.2 percentage points from December 2019. Male unemployment stood at 8.1% and female at 9.9%.

The highest unemployment rate was recorded in Murska Sobota in the north-east, at 12.7%, and the lowest in Kranj in the north-west and Nova Gorica in the west, at 6.6%.

According to the Statistics Office, 891,227 people were in employment in the country in December, 0.2% more than in November 2020 and 1.1% fewer than in December 2019.

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