STA, 16 November 2020 - Slovenian-based bitcoin mining marketplace Nicehash will make the final reimbursement to its clients on 16 December, three years after its clients had their cryptocurrency stolen in a hack. So far, Nicehash has returned 82% of the stolen currency, the company said a press release on Monday.

Nicehash operator H-BIT launched a reimbursement programme in February 2018 after the marketplace was hacked in December 2017.

Over 4,640 bitcoins were stolen at about EUR 10,000 per coin. The current value of bitcoin is at about EUR 13,800.

The reimbursement plan was funded from commissions and profits and was expected to be completed sooner, however poor market conditions in cryptocurrency made this impossible, the company also said.

"Nevertheless we have remained committed to our initial promise to reimburse the stolen funds in full," said the press release, adding that the objective was to show to the public that the company had only good intentions and to help improve trust in digital currency operations.

H-BIT director Martin Škorjanc was quoted by the press release as saying that the platform was now among the safest cryptocurrency markets in the world.

The cyber hack at Nicehash was investigated by the Europol and the FBI, and the company also hired an international digital forensics agency Lifars. Nevertheless, the perpetrators were not found.

All our stories on Nicehash

STA, 16 November 2020 - In a bid to contain the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic, the government has toughened up restrictions, including by temporarily closing all non-essential shops. The measure is effective from Monday and comes with few exceptions, such as grocery stores and shops deemed vital for essential needs.

The government announced a tightening of the lockdown on Thursday after it made certain restrictions looser last week. Certain stores had been allowed to re-open, however they will have to close again as of Monday.

Stores selling groceries and personal care products as well as those offering farm produce are allowed to remain open, but clothing, shoe and tech stores are not listed among the exceptions.

But even grocery stores are not allowed to sell technical goods, and many stores have reportedly spent the weekend sweeping non-compliant goods from the shelves.

Not subject to the stricter lockdown restrictions are pharmacies and other stores selling medical supplies, marketplaces, agricultural supply stores, gas stations, banks and insurance providers, post offices, delivery services and workshops.

Moreover, chimney sweep services are allowed in the event only one person is present in the room where chimney cleaning is performed, and so are construction works if there is no contact with clients.

News-stands, remote sales and in-person pick-up services are also allowed as well as other vital services to maintain public health and safety. There is no time limit on food delivery services.

However, the latest decree specifically sets down that consuming food or beverages in public spaces is banned.

The number of persons in enclosed stores remains capped at one customer per 30 m2 or at a single customer if the space is smaller than 30 m2.

Open-air marketplaces can accommodate one customer per 10 m2.

Shopping centres are required to make sure there is one customer per 30 m2 taking into account the entire building as well as to comply with individual store rules. They must provide separate entry and exit points as well.

Shops are allowed to operate only if all public health recommendations are heeded and contact with customers is reduced to a minimum.

The government is to review the restrictions every seven days to assess whether they are still necessary. All the new measures are expected to last at least 14 days though.

All our stories on Slovenia and coronavirus

STA, 13 November 2020 - Providers of practically all services have been affected by restrictive measures in the second wave of the epidemic just as they were in the first one in spring. They are expected to be affected equally or even more than in the spring, according to a website which brings together those who seek and provide services.

A steep rise in demand for all kinds of services was recorded in the spring after the lockdown was eased and eventually lifted, says omisli.si.

This was followed by a drop in demand during the holiday season, while the second wave of epidemic resulted in another drop.

Data analysed by omisli.si shows that construction and renovation services picked up better after the first wave than services related to weddings.

A drop in interest in business services was by 5% smaller in October than March, while providers of personal services record the same drop like in spring.

While the drop in services regarding weddings was by 8% bigger in October than in March, the figure for construction and renovation services was only 6%.

The most affected segment of weddings services in the second wave is the hiring of wedding venues (-76%), catering (-63%), wine (-50%) and photos (-41%).

The first and second waves have had approximately the same impact on business services.

Compared with the first wave, business services providers witnessed a drop of 88% for text writing in October, video production suffered a drop of 66% and tax counselling that of 49%.

A rise in demand was meanwhile recorded by providers of activities for children (+60%) and divorce legal counselling (+67%).

The greatest fall in demand was meanwhile recorded in coach hire (-88%), caravan hire (-82%) and venue hire (-74%) as well as in dentists and personal trainers (-65%).

Car repair and car paint shops meanwhile witnessed a great interest in October, given that they were one of the exceptions to lockdown.

Interest in driving schools last month soared by 900%, while demand for child daycare and pet daycare doubled.

STA, 12 November 2020 - Employers advertised just over 13,600 job vacancies in the third quarter of the year, which is 2,500 more than in the second quarter, the Statistic Office said on Thursday. The number of occupied posts was up by more than 3,000. Meanwhile, the Employment Service has so far paid out EUR 312.4 million to help avoid layoffs.

The Statistics Office collected data on job vacancies at the end of August, just between both waves of the coronavirus crisis, when business activity picked up again.

Compared to the previous quarter, demand for new labour force was up in most activities, and was the highest in construction and manufacturing (almost 2,900 job vacancies in each), followed by retail, where almost 1,800 job vacancies were advertised.

Seasonally adjusted data show that there were little more than 766,000 occupied posts in Slovenia in the third quarter or 3,000 more than in the second.

In the second quarter, when some companies had to close their doors or reduce their activities for almost two months, the number of occupied posts dropped by almost 30,000.

However, thanks to the state subsidies for shorter working time, furlough and compensation for quarantine, 300,000 jobs were preserved, according to Labour Minister Janez Cigler Kralj.

In the third quarter, the number of occupied posts started rising again, except in manufacturing, financial and insurance services, and in other business activities.

In year-on-year comparison, the number of jobs dropped by almost 8,000.

All our stories on Slovenia and coronavirus

STA, 12 November 2020 - The newspaper Delo examines the reasons for what it describes as "immunity of the safe property market" in the headline of Thursday's front-page commentary as prices of residential properties keep increasing in Slovenia and Europe against the expectations and despite the crisis.

Despite the 7.9% contraction in the country's GDP in the first half of the year and the economic crisis, demand for residential properties remains strong, while demand for hotel, hospitality and office properties is decreasing, the paper notes.

"Most on the demand side are those who spent the spring lockdown in small homes (...), while there are also individuals and businesses with a lot of capital who are looking for safe investment opportunities. An additional stimulus is negative interest rates that may drop further in the future."

The paper goes on to say that despite the demand being increased by some empty properties due to the crisis in the tourism sector, the shortage of real estate in Slovenia for the past 20 years has been such those empty properties do not make much difference.

"What is more, owners of empty properties are now even willing to wait for the country and international space to reopen before they return to rental business.

"Ownership is a major priority for Slovenians as it is, while now it appears to be supplemented with investments in real estate. These will certainly be driven by a chronic shortage thereof.

"It may be an indirect consequence of negative interest rates, or the trends may also be linked to the Europeans being culturally not in favour of venture investment and relying on conservative ways of personal and business finance management."

STA, 11 November 2020 - Entrepreneurs in Slovenia are not as pessimistic about their businesses in the second wave of coronavirus as they were in the first, the AJPES agency for legal records has said. In October, much fewer private entrepreneurs were deleted from the business registry than in March and much more new businesses were founded.

As the government first declared a Covid-19 epidemic in March, the number of small businesses deleted from the business registry rose significantly. As many as 2,088 decided to close their business the same month, which is double the figure that was recorded in February or January.

However, when the National Assembly passed the first package of measures aimed at helping businesses overcome the crisis at the start of April, businesses started extinguishing at a slower rate. But the closing down of small companies was still much higher than in the same period last year.

In April, 1,512 entrepreneurs gave up on their business and the number fell below 1,000 only in August.

At the end of May, the epidemic was declared over, and several more stimulus packages were passed, but as the number of new infections surged again in the autumn, an epidemic was declared again on 19 October.

According to AJPES data, the number of businesses deleted from the registry again exceeded 1,000 but entrepreneurs seem to be less pessimistic than during the first wave.

In October, a total of 1,274 small business were closed down, which is 39% fewer than in March. Meanwhile, more new businesses opened, as 2,009 people decided to start their business, which is 8% more than in September. In March, only 1,285 new businesses were founded.

All our stories on coronavirus and Slovenia

STA, 10 November 2020 - During the coronavirus epidemic, there were fewer cases of bankruptcies among companies compared to last year, show data by the AJPES agency for legal records. In the first nine months of 2020, a total of 845 companies went bankrupt, down 16% on the same period in 2019 and a 21% drop on the same period in 2018.

In the first quarter of 2020, 344 companies declared bankruptcy, somewhat more than in the January-March period in 2019.

However, in the second quarter this year, when the first Covid-19 wave peaked, the number of bankruptcies (222) declined by as much as 29% compared to the same period in 2019. Moreover, the number of companies going bust in the third quarter of 2020, 279, dropped by 22% year-on-year.

The emergency act to contain the epidemic and mitigate its consequences, passed during the first wave, extended certain insolvency procedure deadlines.

The law also set down that managements were not required to apply for bankruptcy if companies had become insolvent as a result of Covid-19 and lockdown measures. The act was effective until three months after the first epidemic wave.

The government has provided a set of stimulus measures for companies struggling due to the corona crisis, including the furlough and short-time work schemes and a loan payment deferral programme, with most of the measures still effective.

STA, 2 November 2020 - The closure of restaurants as part of the Covid-19 epidemic lockdown measures has resulted in a steep rise in turnover for food delivery platforms such as E-hrana and Wolt, whose couriers on bicycles can be seen buzzing around major Slovenian cities all the time.

Slovenia's E-hrana, which was established in 2011, currently covers more than 400 restaurants around the country, 150 of which have joined during the coronavirus epidemic. New restaurants are being added to the list virtually on a daily basis.

"In the first wave, several restaurants decided to temporarily close their doors, while now the majority of restaurants have persisted and are trying to stay afloat with the home delivery system," the company has told the STA.

Since the latest lockdown, the number of restaurants which use E-hrana couriers has increased by around 30%, and the company has also expanded to Celje, which has joined the country's largest cities Ljubljana and Maribor.

The platform also allows restaurants which have their own delivery staff to receive online orders through E-hrana, meaning that its users from all around the country can get restaurant food delivered to their doorstep.

E-hrana processes a few thousand orders on a daily basis, and has more than 240,000 registered users. "The number of daily registered users has increased four-fold during the lockdown," the company said.

The significant increase in the number of orders is also attributed to the cold and wet weather, "which is when our season peaks anyway".

The Finland-based Wolt has also seen increased interest in its platform, including from various shops. During the second wave, the company has added 70 new restaurants from Ljubljana and Maribor to its list, which compares to 60 during the spring wave.

Wolt has also decided to help restaurants whose turnover has dropped with the lockdown. "In the coming weeks, we will select every week ten restaurants to deliver from free of charge," said the company which currently serves 330 restaurants.

Over the summer, the company was also looking for partners in shops which sell food and drink and other products, and now Wolt is also able to deliver to customer's homes products such as flour, light bulbs, products for childcare, electronics or washable masks.

While it currently covers only Ljubljana and Maribor, Wolt plans to expand to other cities as demand is growing. It is constantly opening new jobs and increasing the number of couriers, while also employing people in customers support, sales and marketing.

STA, 2 November 2020 - Job prospect projections in Slovenia for next year remain relatively encouraging despite the aggravated circumstances. A survey by the Employment Service suggests demand will exceed labour market supply in many professions, although the opposite is also possible for a long list of jobs.

The Occupations barometer survey, which includes assessments for 177 professions, suggests demand will for instance exceed supply in healthcare, construction, transport, hospitality, and information technology.

There is however also a number of groups where supply could be excessive, including biologists, botanists, zoologists, journalists, sociologists, anthropologists, cashiers, business secretaries, window dressers, menial workers, legal experts, agriculture, forestry and fishing experts, philosophers, historians, political scientists, translators, interpreters, language assistants and other linguists, secretaries, photographers, shop assistants, telemarketers, graphic and multimedia designers and tourism and travel agency employees.

Compared to last years' survey, the first list contains 16 professions less, the balanced demand and supply list has 10 professions more, while the excessive supply list has six professions more.

The Employment Service highlighted shop assistants as the group whose prospects have deteriorated the most, having moved from the excessive demand to the excessive supply list.

STA, 28 October 2020 - The Employers' Association (Združenje delodajalcev Slovenije - ZDS) called on the government on Wednesday to freeze the minimum wage for at least a year as part of the planned sixth anti-corona package. It also proposes a more flexible and simpler framework for teleworking and retiring upon meeting minimum retirement conditions.

"Employers are aware that each anti-corona package so far has brought upgrades of previous measures as well as new measures.

"Our proposals have been acknowledged during negotiations, however the Employers' Association has been noting an urgent need for certain labour market measures since March, measures that have not been included in the packages so far, and we expect them in the sixth anti-corona package."

The employers deem freezing the minimum wage a priority measure.

The new formula for setting the minimum wage, which enters into force in January, does not envisage coordinating the minimum wage with social partners; instead it excludes employers and trade unions from the procedure and puts the Labour Ministry in charge of determining the amount, said the association.

"The existing law has also never been discussed by the Economic and Social Council, it was adopted without social dialogue and without taking into account any of the arguments of businesses."

The Slovenian economy is in the middle of the gravest economic crisis in the past 70 years due to Covid-19, said the association, adding that the general consensus of opinion is that 2021 will not see recovery let alone results similar to those in 2019.

In such circumstances the economy cannot stand even minimum pressure in regard to labour costs, said the association, noting that any minimum wage raise, which would lead to pay raises in general, would be unimaginable during such a crisis.

A month ago, Sonja Šmuc, the director general of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GZS), said that GZS projections showed the minimum wage will rise by at least 9% based on the new formula that puts it 20% above the minimum cost of living.

She warned that the last substantial rise in the minimum wage a decade ago caused a structural unemployment situation and had a long-lasting impact.

Šmuc argued now is not the time to experiment with a new formula and urged that the minimum wage be preserved at current levels at least in 2021.

The opposition Left, which drafted the new law, responded to today's call by the Employers' Association by saying that the organisation had overlooked the needs of workers and their families in following its own interests.

"The new concept of the minimum wage, which is being introduced gradually, is a guarantee that no one who works will live in poverty," said the Left, adding that certain representatives of the capital were trying to prevent the realisation of this concept.

The party also said that employers had received a significant financial aid from the state, which is why the cost of the minimum wage raise would be "a drop in the ocean" compared to those amounts.

Another organisation that appealed to the government for help today is the Chamber of Commerce (TZS).

The closure of shops during the epidemic has aggravated the situation of retailers, warned the chamber, calling for the sixth stimulus package to feature aid for companies whose operations have been restricted or suspended due to anti-corona restrictions.

Non-grocery retailers are among worst-hit business sectors, said the TZS, adding that those that are required to be closed or partially closed generate 30% of Slovenia's total retail income.

Such companies have been pushed to the limits of financial capacities and jobs have been jeopardised, pointed out the chamber, deeming government aid vital.

The TZS proposes Slovenia follow Austria's example of a fixed-cost subsidy scheme to help retailers come out on top of the coronavirus crisis.