DEVELOPMENT OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN SLOVAKIA IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all areas of our lives. The non-pharmaceutical anti-pandemic measures taken by the governments of the countries to reduce the number of people infected or reverse adverse developments also have a strong impact on the economic side of citizens' lives. The shutdown measures put an end to the activities of many entrepreneurs, who had to lay off their employees. Thus, the Covid-19 pandemic is a major reason behind the rising unemployment. This is also the case in Slovakia. Since March 2020, when the first measures came into force, the registered unemployment rate has been rising. The highest inflow of new jobseekers occurred in April 2020. In this article, we discuss development of the unemployment rate and of the numbers of newly registered jobseekers in Slovakia during the period from November 2019 to October 2020 and examine in more detail the impact of the shutdown measures on the development of the number of jobseekers in Slovakia and on the individual economic sectors according to the NACE classification. It was confirmed that these measures had the greatest impact on the sectors that are also the most publicized, such as the accommodation and food service industry, real estate, administrative and support service industry, arts, entertainment and recreation and other service industries. In these sectors, the number of new unemployment claims increased several times, especially in April 2020, and in some of them, the rate of the new unemployment claims has not returned to last year’s values or those from the beginning of 2020.