The jobless rate in the second quarter of 1999, at 15.8%, was 3.7 percentage points higher than in the same period of 1998. The number of job seekers rose 31% over the same period last year to exceed 400,000.
Unemployment among 15 to 24-year-olds was as high as 33%, while the jobless rate was 26.8% among 25 to 34-year-olds. The biggest number of job seekers had been recently employed in the industrial (22.2%), building (11.3%), trade (8%), and agriculture (7.6%) sectors.
There were 2.1 million people (including women on maternity leave) employed in the Slovak economy in the second quarter of 1999, a decline of 4.5 % against the same period in 1998.
