Figures released by the service on Monday show the jobless total dropping to 78,555 in April, down 3.3% from the month before and down 13.8% compared to April 2017.

A total of 5,232 new unemployed were registered in April, 0.4% fewer than the month before but 0.8% more than in April 2017.

Of the newly unemployed, 3,083 saw their fixed-term employment contracts expire, while 564 were first-time job seekers and 689 were made redundant.

Of the 7,897 who were removed from the unemployed register, 6,475 got a job or became self-employed. The latter figure marks a decline of 21% since March and a fall of 6.6% since April 2017.

The number of unemployed fell in all regions; at the annual level it dropped the most in the Trbovlje area in central Slovenia (-22.8%).

The latest available unemployment rate figure is for February at 9.1%.