Labour market and Employment in Slovenia

Slovenia is a parliamentary republic with 1,948,250 inhabitants (according to the Population Census from 31 March 2002). 321,235 of the inhabitants live in the capital Ljubljana. The area of the Republic of Slovenia covers 20,273 sq. km. The currency is the Slovene tolar (made up of 100 stotins), the official language is Slovene, as well as the languages of Italian and Hungarian minorities in Slovenia. At the end of the 1980s, Slovenia, like other socialist countries decided for the transition into a new political and economic system. Slovenia became independent on 25 June 1991 which was followed by the disintegration of the Yugoslav federation.

The crisis of the so-called self-management model of economy, which emerged as early as in the beginning of the 1980s, demanded thorough changes in economy. Restructuring the economy was accompanied by bankruptcies of companies and redundancies, there was little new employment and GDP, as the main indicator of a society’s economic development, continued to decrease. The collapse of Yugoslavia mainly stopped economic links with the ex-Yugoslav republics which caused even more severe recession. The lowest recession of the Slovene economy was reached in 1991 (-8.9 %), while 1993 saw a renewed impetus of economic growth (+2.8 %). In the following years GDP was growing at about a 4 % rate; the growth rate in 2001 was 3.0 %. In 2001, GDP per capita amounted to 10,564 EUR, or to 16,310 EUR as regards the purchasing power, which shows that Slovenia has already got ahead of some less developed EU member countries. The transition into open market economy also encouraged foreign trade with other countries. Slovenia's most important external trade partner countries are Germany, France, Italy, Croatia and Austria, however, the trade with other countries in transition has been increasing as well. The Slovene import in 2001 totalled 11,288 billion USD (60.0 % GDP) and the export 11,409 billion USD (60.7 %). Slightly less successful is Slovenia at stabilising the prices; the lowest inflation rate in the last years was 6.1 % in 1999; in 2001, however, the prices increased by 8.4 %.

Alongside the economic changes the labour market has been changing as well. The registered rate of unemployment was increasing rapidly at the beginning of the 1990s, it peaked in October 1993 (137,257 registered unemployed persons) and afterwards stagnated at the number of over 120,000 persons. Unemployment began to decrease only at the end of the decade when the positive effects of economic growth started to emerge, but at the same time the conditions to obtain the status of an unemployed person, have become more severe.

In the decade of fast changes the structure of the unemployed changed as well. At the end of the 1980s, a half of the unemployed were first-job seekers who registered with the Employment Service after the end of the academic year. The transition into the 1990s was characterised by bankruptcies and restructuring of companies which caused a great inflow of unemployed persons from the industrial sector. Among the unemployed were more and more elderly and less educated persons and as a consequence there were more and more long-term unemployed people. Apart from that, the employers started to prefer employing on a temporary basis and now the transition between various statuses on the labour market is more and more frequent (increased dynamics on the labour market).

On average 101,857 persons were registered with the Employment Service in 2001 and the registered unemployment rate was 11.6 %. In 2002, registered unemployment was decreasing in the first half of the year, but in July and August it started to increase due to a greater inflow of first-job seekers and unemployed persons whose temporary jobs were terminated. The demand for workers slowed down. At the end of August 102,204 persons were registered with the Employment Service and the unemployment rate in June was 11.3 %. Of total unemployed 51.6 % were women, 50.0 % were above 40 years of age, 54.6 % were long-term unemployed and 47 % were persons without vocational education. The demand for workers and trainees has been stable in recent years. In the first eight months of this year 3.8 % less vacancies were notified as compared to the same period in 2001.

Apart from registered unemployment, Slovenia also monitors unemployment according to the internationally recognised definitions of ILO and Eurostat (Labour Force Survey). The first labour force survey was conducted in 1993 by the Employment Service of the Republic of Slovenia, while in 1993 the task was taken over by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia. Nowadays the Labour Force Survey is conducted continuously and the results are published quarterly. According to the LFS data for the second quarter of 2002, Slovenia’s active population numbered 922,000 persons, 58,000 of them were the survey unemployed. The LFS unemployment rate was 5.9 %, slightly more women were unemployed than men (6.3 % and 5.7 % respectively). Uniform methodology also enables international comparisons, according to which Slovenia's LFS unemployment rate is below the European Union's average rate. The activity rate in Slovenia is 58.5 % and the employment/population ratio is 54.4 %.

The activity rate of the population is monitored by the Statistical Office of the RS of Slovenia also through register sources (formal statuses). The data is based on a monthly survey (ZAP–M) and the Statistical register of population in employment. The register sources cover all employed persons with employment contracts. In June 2002, there were in Slovenia 885,666 active persons and 785,593 persons in employment, and in the first six months of this year there were on average 783,124 persons in employment. The majority of people in employment are persons in paid employment (89.0 %), while self-employed persons represent a good 10 %. As compared to June 2001, the number of persons in employment increased by 0.5 %, and the comparison of periodic data shows an increase by 1.2 %. The number of persons in employment has been increasing in recent years (+ 1.3 % and +1.4 % in 2000 and 2001 respectively), primarily due to employment in the services sector.