About 29 percent of all Slovak households were directly affected by layoffs in 2010, with one-third of these households reporting a drop in income, according to the Transition Report 2011 drafted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) that was published by Poštová Banka on March 5, the TASR newswire reported.
"The crisis also kept many of us from driving our cars. Up to 41 percent of Slovak households limited the use of their motor vehicles due to crisis," states the report. Slovakia topped the list of countries in which citizens resorted to walking, public transport or alternative means to travel frugally.
But giving up vices proved more difficult for Slovaks, as more than a half of the households decided to buy less bread, milk, basic foodstuffs and vegetables while less cut down on alcohol and tobacco consumption. But Slovaks did not reduce their expenditures on health care.
"Only one-eighth of Slovak households curbed their expenditures on health care," states the report. Slovakia was among the monitored countries that had introduced the least severe cutbacks in health-care expenditures, with only Slovenians, Brits and the French having lesser cuts in expenditures. Latvian households reduced their health-related expenditures the most.
Citizens in Sweden, Great Britain, and Poland needed to introduce the lowest number of austerity measures because of the economic crisis. The EBRD surveyed more than 39,000 households in 34 countries in late 2010.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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