Analyst: Economy Will Continue to Send New Demands for Employees

Bratislava, January 20 (TASR) - The growing, albeit slowing, Slovak economy is likely to continue to send new demands for employees at the beginning of the year, analyst at UniCredit Bank Lubomir Korsnak said on Monday in a commentary on the December unemployment data published by the Labour, Social Affairs and the Family Centre (UPSVaR). "But recent months have indicated a possible return of the two-speed nature of the domestic labour market. Traditionally, at the turn of the year, the unemployment rate is temporarily boosted by traditional seasonal factors (the end of seasonal work, especially in the construction sector). This time, these could also be increased by a number of mass redundancies already announced at the start of the year. However, on a tight labour market with a record number of unfilled jobs, the rise in unemployment should only be temporary and the labour market should be able to absorb the new unemployed relatively quickly," he added. According to Korsnak, the consolidation and the expected slowdown in economic growth this year (also under the influence of the expected introduction of US tariffs on imports from Europe) are likely to relieve the domestic labour market only partially and temporarily. "The imbalance on the labour market is unlikely to ease even in the coming years. On the contrary, the ageing of the population and the gradual decline of the economically active population will further accentuate it," added the UniCredit Bank analyst. UPSVaR reported earlier on Monday that unemployment measured by the share of available jobseekers of working age stood at 3.81 percent in December, growing slightly month-on-month by 0.08 percentage point (p.p.), but going down by 0.07 p.p. year-on-year. The data from the Labour, Social Affairs and the Family Ministry show that the number of jobseekers has been steadily decreasing over the past year. am/mcs