Analyst: Western Slovakia Drives May Unemployment Decline

Bratislava, 20 June (TASR) - The month-on-month decline in unemployment in May was driven primarily by the wealthier regions of western and north-western Slovakia, particularly Bratislava, central Povazie, Kysuce, Turiec and Liptov. By contrast, unemployment in the country's economically weaker regions did not continue to fall on average in May, Lubomir Korsnak, an analyst at UniCredit Bank Czech Republic and Slovakia, highlighted the trend in response to the latest unemployment data. "Gemer, Saris, Abov, Zemplin and Spis all recorded a slight deterioration in their figures. The district of Sobrance in particular has seen a notably negative trend over the past two months. On average, the unemployment rate in southern central and eastern Slovakia, after seasonal adjustment, rose by 0.02 percentage points to 8.05 percent in May," Korsnak said. According to data from the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family, the overall available unemployment rate, calculated as a share of the economically active population, fell by 0.06 percentage points month-on-month to 5.08 percent in May. Its year-on-year increase slowed from 0.31 percentage points to 0.26 percentage points. The number of job vacancies in the economy continued to rise sharply in May. Compared with April, more than 10,000 vacancies were added, bringing the total to nearly 141,000. After seasonal adjustment, the increase was slightly lower at 6,000 vacancies, representing growth of 4.5 percent, broadly in line with the previous month. The annual growth rate in job vacancies accelerated from 26.2 percent to 33.3 percent, the strongest pace since March 2022. Korsnak noted that part of the increase in vacancies remains largely technical in nature. "May again showed a significant discrepancy between the total number of unemployed people who found a new job during the month (12,400) and the number of vacancies officially filled (1,900). While some unemployed people may take up positions that were not necessarily registered with labour offices, this large imbalance also suggests that, in some cases, filled vacancies are not reported to labour offices and therefore remain in the statistics, artificially inflating the total number of vacancies in the economy," he added. Labour market statistics from recent months continue to point to a two-speed domestic labour market. Overall, the labour market remains relatively tight, which should help limit any rise in unemployment in the coming months, largely through a reduction in available vacancies rather than a sharp increase in joblessness. However, due to structural imbalances, both regional and skills-related, more substantial layoffs in certain sectors and regions are expected to continue generating temporary increases in unemployment. According to the analyst, part of this increase could become long-term, pushing the unemployment rate systematically above the spring lows recorded last year. mf/jrg