Unemployment rate down to 5.04 percent in December

The registered unemployment rate in Slovakia at the end of last year dropped by 0.05 percentage points as compared to November to 5.04%. Year-on-year, the unemployment rate was lower by 0.90 percentage points in December. The Director General of the Central Office for Labor, Social Affairs, and Family of the Slovak Republic Marian Valentovic reported the data on Monday. At the end of last year, labour offices registered 138,198 jobseekers available to take up a job immediately. Labour Minister Jan Richter (Smer-SD) said that reducing the unemployment rate below 5 percent will be the challenge for 2019. The number of unemployed in all high-risk categories, i.e. young people aged up to 29 years and people older than 50, had decreased by the end of last year, while the number of long-term unemployed registered with labour offices fell by 25 percent. "The number of extremely long-term unemployed went down by almost one quarter. The number of jobless school-leavers declined as well," stated Richter. He also added that the Government wants to continue to regulate and control the employment of people from non-EU countries in Slovakia. He stressed the need to focus on Brexit, which might hit Slovaks working in Britain. "There's also a need to prepare measures in the field of digitisation and robotisation," said Richter.