STA, 15 December 2020 - Some 84,700 unemployed persons were registered with Slovenia's Employment Service on average in the first eleven months of 2020, up 14.5% compared to the same period in 2019. Currently, 84,732 unemployed persons are recorded, however the figure is expected to rise to some 88,000 at the end of the year, Employment Service head Mitja Bobnar said.
During the January-November period, about 90,500 persons registered as unemployed, a 35% increase on the same period in 2019, Bobnar noted at today' briefing.
The year-on-year rise was most significant in the case of furloughed workers or people whose companies had gone bust. Among those who lost their jobs was also a larger number of persons who had seen their fixed-term contracts expire.
At the end of November, the unemployed register numbered more than 84,100, up by 16% year-on-year.
Employers registered 107,000 vacancies until the end of November, down by 27% on the first eleven months in 2019.
In the past two months, the number of vacancies dropped by some 20%, most notably in culture, recreational activities, traffic, warehouse services, retail and the hospitality sector, Bobnar said.
"Certain activities have been hiring on a significantly larger scale," he said, highlighting manufacturing, construction, transportation services and social care activities as such areas.
Compared with other European countries, Slovenia's unemployment rate is somewhere in between, he noted.
Since the start of stimulus measures, the Employment Service has received more than 160,000 applications for the furlough or short-time work schemes for over 600,000 workers. "The figure is truly high, however we manage to process the applications in 14 days on average," Bobnar said.
All furlough scheme applications stemming from the fourth and fifth stimulus packages have been processed, he said, adding that short-time work scheme applications had been processed in timely fashion.
A total of EUR 335 million was disbursed to some 36,200 service providers for 236,000 workers.
