The number of people out of a job dropped by 15.4% to 67,000, while the number of the employed increased 4.8% to 959,000, according to standards used by the International Labour Organisation.

More than half of the unemployed (53%) were women. Their jobless rate dropped by 1.1 point to 7.5%, while the male unemployment rate decreased by 1.7 points to 5.8%.

The unemployment rate decreased in all statistical regions last year. The lowest rate was observed in the Koroška (N) and Posavska (NE) regions at 4.3% and the highest in the Pomurska (NE) at 9.6%.

Koroška also recorded the most substantial drop with survey unemployment there decreasing by 7.9 percentage points compared with 2016.

The number of active persons increased by 3.2% last year to 1,027,000 and the number of inactive persons fell by 4.2% to 730,000.