Stats: Unemployment Rate Down to 5.4 percent in Third Quarter of This Year

Bratislava, December 3 (TASR) - The unemployment rate in terms of the proportion of unemployed among the economically active population amounted to 5.4 percent in the third quarter of this year, down 0.5 percentage points (p.p.) year-on-year (y-o-y), the Statistics Office reported on Tuesday. After seasonal adjustments, 146,300 people were unemployed in Slovakia. Both key unemployment indicators - the number of people out of work and the unemployment rate - were at record lows since 1994. The majority of the unemployed, over 63 percent, had been out of work for more than a year. Their number continued to fall significantly, however, by 9.3 percent year-on-year in third quarter. The number of long-term unemployed thus remained well below 100,000 people. Short-term unemployment also fell significantly, by 8 percent, to almost 54,000 people. More than a third of the unemployed have never worked before, including school-leavers. This figure went down by 2.1 percent y-o-y. The number of unemployed shrank in five of the eight regions of Slovakia, and the drops in the number of unemployed reached more than 15 percent y-o-y in Nitra, Banska Bystrica and Kosice regions. lin/df/ko