STA, 20 November 2020 - The financial situation of many Slovenian households has deteriorated since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, shows the latest Valicon survey. While in March 13% of respondents said things were tougher, in November this share is over 20%. Almost three-quarters said they had or would reduce spending.
Some 21% of the respondents in Valicon's survey conducted among 527 respondents between 13 and 15 November said their financial situation had deteriorated and that they had reduced spending.
Another 23% expect their financial situation to deteriorate and just 28% said they had not and did not intend to cut their spending.
The survey has also shown that the share of workers on furlough has risen significantly, to 14%, which is similar as at the end of May, just before the first wave of the epidemic was declared over and the share started dropping again.
During the spring epidemic, the share of workers on furlough stood at 20-30%. At the moment, one in four employed Slovenians is not working. The share of people on sick leave has also gone up, to 5%.
Exactly three-quarters of staff is working, whereas 44% of them have the same workload as before the virus, a quarter has bigger workload and 6% work shorter hours.
The authors of the survey say that optimism which was detected two weeks ago is picking up. The share of those who believe things are looking up is now the same as the share of those who think the situation is deteriorating. Two weeks ago, almost two-thirds saw no silver lining.
Currently, 63% of respondents assessed the situation the country is in now as negative and only 37% as positive. Three-quarters are concerned about the virus, which is a little less than two weeks ago.
