The Slovak Statistics Bureau reported that the total number of people with jobs in the Slovak Republic in the third quarter of 1999 was 2.1 million (down 3.3 % against the same time last year), while the number of unemployed was 430,300 (up 32.5% from the same period in 1998). The jobless rate was 16.7% in 3Q99, four percentage points higher than in 3Q98.
The most significant drops in employment occured in agriculture (-10.1%) and the construction industry (-8.1%). The health-care sector and public administration were the only sectors to report higher employment than a year ago, with increases of 6.5% and 1.5%, respectively.
