The National Labour Agency collected 442.2 million crowns less than it spent in the first quarter of 1999, when its revenues were 2.02 billion crowns and expenditures were 2.46 billion crowns. The agency collected 1.9 billion crowns from unemployment insurance contributions, flows from the balance of revenues and expenditures of the National Labour Agency as of March 31, 1999, press secretary Elena Komínková said.
The agency recorded negative balance of revenues and expenditures for each month of this year. In January, the agency was 3.3 million crowns in the red. In February, the deficit swelled to 266.5 million crowns and it slowed to 172.4 million crowns in March. Thanks to 1.02 billion crowns surplus from the previous accounting period, the agency closed the first quarter 581.5 million crowns in a cumulative surplus. The agency collected the highest sum of the unemployment insurance payments in January (649 million crowns).
The agency paid 1.93 billion crowns in unemployment benefits and spent 258.6 million crowns in support of creating new jobs in the first three months of 1999. The number of the jobless increased to 470,000 people and unemployment rate reached a record level of 17.6 % at the end of March.
