According to data released on November 19 by the National Labour Office, the unemployment rate in Slovakia at the end of November fell to 17.73%, down 0.05% from October and continuing a positive trend seen since August. Since the same time last year, the unemployment rate has increased by 3.83%.
The labour office said the October unemployment drop was caused by a decrease in the number of new job seekers, and that the fall in unemployment was visible only in the regions of Bratislava, Trenčín and Nitra. Other regions have reported an opposite trend.
The average duration of unemployment has continued to grow, ending in October at 13.94 months - 0.2 months longer than in September. The rise in the number of newly registered unemployed over the past several years has recently stabilized, with October numbers up slightly by 682, to 460,304 people.