Analysts: Slight Bump in Unemployment a Recurring Phenomenon in January

Bratislava, February 20 (TASR) - The overall unemployment rate still stands at about six percent, although it recorded a small hike of 0.1 percentage point in January, but a slight increase in January is a recurring phenomenon, stated Slovak Central Bank (NBS) analysts on Thursday. According to UniCredit Bank analyst Lubomir Korsnak, the January growth in unemployment was lower than expected. "The adverse exogenous environment and reduced performance of industrial sectors have carried over into nothing more but only a stifled favourable development of the unemployment rate so far," claimed the NBS analysts. The slight cooling of labour market was also shown in January by the number of job vacancies that dropped by almost 1,500 to 91,000, pointed out Korsnak. "Thus, the dynamics of year-on-year growth in job vacancies slowed down from 24.9 percent to 12.3 percent," he claimed, adding that last year's figures also swelled due to a change in legislation in early 2019 that made it mandatory to report all job vacancies, however. According to the analyst, the slowing economy is likely to generate gradually fewer and fewer jobs, putting a damper on the domestic labour market. "We don't expect any significant unemployment reductions in future months either," he said, adding that unemployment is more likely to rise, particularly in economically lagging regions of Slovakia. mf/mcs