The performance of the Slovak economy in the third wave of the pandemic has been more stable and resilient as compared to the second wave, with private consumption growing and jobs being preserved despite the fading labour demand, a recent monitor by the Financial Policy (IFP) Institute has shown.
“The frequency of how often people work from home hasn’t yet increased significantly, which means that people are leaving their homes. This has had a positive impact on private consumption. The favourable development of household consumption is confirmed by sales in retail outlets tracked by eKasa (a system of government supervision of cash registers in shops), which increased by 9.4 percent year-on-year in the first twenty days of October. Hospitality outlets have also been doing well compared to last year, with their sales growing by 32 percent year-on-year,” stated IFP analysts.
According to the analysts, the labour market has also been stable despite the weakening labour demand. In their opinion, however, regional differences – in terms of the COVID-19 automaton anti-virus measures – so far haven’t been reflected in terms of job creation in individual regions. “Therefore, the weakening demand... can be attributed to global factors rather than the situation concerning the pandemic in the country,” remarked the analysts, adding that the current labour supply is only slightly below pre-crisis levels.
