Slovak Unemployment

The Slovak Spectator today:

Slovakia’s unemployment highest in EU in May

According to the latest Eurostat statistics published on July 3, Slovakia's unemployment rate of 10.8 percent in May was the highest among all EU-member states.

The second highest unemployment rate in May was recorded in Poland (10.5 percent). France had the third-highest rate (8.7 percent).

The lowest rates were recorded in the Netherlands (3.2 percent), Denmark (3.3 percent), and Ireland (4.1 percent).

The average unemployment rate for the EU as a whole stood at 7.0 percent, which is 0.1 percentage points lower than in April, and 1 percentage point less than in May 2006. Unemployment in the eurozone, meanwhile, also stood at 7.0 percent.

Annual drop in jobless rate continues

The official unemployment rate in Slovakia dipped to 8.33 percent at the end of May, which is down 0.17 percentage points from April, the Labour, Social Affairs and Family Ministry announced on June 19. This is a drop of 2.23 points since May 2006.

The number of job seekers able to take up work immediately was 216,732 at the end of May. This was 4,286 fewer than in April. When compared with May 2006, the figure is 53,486 fewer. As far as the number of job seekers in total, the Labour and Social Affairs office reported a total of 247,373 at the end of May, which is down by 5,962 since April and 55,261 from May 2006.

The unemployment rate calculated from the total number of all job seekers was 9.51 percent in May. This is a 0.23-percentage-point decrease compared to April and a 2.32-percentage-point drop year-on-year.