Ljubljana, 11 April (STA) - The survey unemployment rate in Slovenia decreased for the fifth consecutive year in 2018, according to the Statistics Office. It hit a ten-year low of 5.1%, which was 1.4 percentage points lower than in 2017. The rate remains the highest, at 9%, among those between 15 and 29 years of age.
However, this group has also been seeing a steady decrease in unemployment, with the most recent figure being 10.1 percentage points lower than its highest value in 2013.
The number of active population in Slovenia increased by 0.7% year-on-year to 1.034 million people. Inactive population was at 724,000, a drop of 0.9% over the year before.
In the active population group, 981,000 were active participants in the labour market, up 2.2% over 2017, and 53,000 were unemployed.
A gender gap persisted among the unemployed, with men making up 48% of the group and women 52%. The number of unemployed men dropped by 19.2% over 2017 and the number of women was down 23.6%.
Some 832,000 people were in formal employment last year, which was 1.5% more than in 2017. While the number of people in all forms of employment went up in 2018, there was an especially notable increase of 8.3% among the self-employed.
The number of self-employed reached 122,000 last year, the highest ever since the Statistics Office started keeping labour participation records.