Tomas: Unemployment Fell to New Record Low of 3.71 percent in April

Bratislava, 20 May (TASR) - Unemployment in Slovakia fell to its lowest ever level in April, at 3.71 percent, with the unemployment rate calculated from the total number of job-seekers standing at 5.79 percent, said Labour Minister Erik Tomas (Voice-SD) on Tuesday. The number of unemployed in April was also at its lowest level, at around 161,000. "There have never been fewer people out of work in Slovakia than in April 2025. Maybe just for the sake of interest, when was the highest number of job-seekers or the highest unemployment in Slovakia? It was in January 2002, when the number of unemployed people was 563,946," said Tomas, adding that the current number of job vacancies is 103,367. According to him, the state has helped a number of employees, for example, at a company called Eterna in Banovce nad Bebravou (Trencin region) and at Bukoza in Vranov nad Toplou (Presov region), who were reimbursed for lost salaries. On the other hand, he didn't rule out the possibility of a crisis in the labour market due to global factors in the context of the introduction of US tariffs, thereby increasing unemployment. If the tariffs were to be applied as proposed, he said, it would cause major problems for the automotive industry. In response, the Labour Ministry is preparing an amendment to the law on the system called kurzarbeit (short-time work), which will expand external factors to include unforeseeable economic reasons such as a loss of sales. This would mean that people shouldn't lose their jobs in the event of such a setback on the part of their employer. am/df