AS UNEMPLOYMENT is a lingering sore point in Slovakia, the preliminary estimate released by the Slovak Statistics Office (ŠÚ) on Tuesday, August 14, means mildly good news: Employment in Slovakia grew by 0.2 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2012 to 2.216 million people.
When seasonal effects are taken into account, overall employment increased by 0.3 percent year-on-year, staying at the same level as in the first quarter of 2012, the TASR newswire quoted the ŠÚ. Detailed figures including data from individual sectors will be announced by the Slovak Statistics Office on September 6.
In Q1, 2.212 million inhabitants of Slovakia were employed which means an increase of 0.6 percent against the same period of 2011, the SITA newswire wrote. After seasonal effects are deducted, the total employment in the country increased year-on-year 0.7 percent against the first quarter of 2011 and 0.2 percent against the fourth quarter of 2011.
However, economic expert Anton Marcinčin analysed for the Hospodárske noviny daily the employment situation in the country, quoting the employment outlook for 2012 recently published by the OECD. Slovakia was placed among the nine EU countries which had a double-digit unemployment rate as of May 2012 – of 14 percent – (along with Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain).
