As many as 31,000 applications have already been resolved and decisions on state aid sent to over 25,600 employers.

The first payments will be made on 11 May and then on 10 June, the national employment agency said on Thursday.

The latest figures about the applications filed by employers on the basis of two emergency coronavirus laws are still unofficial.

The agency expects the final figure to be by at least 10% lower because many applications were filed several times.

Since the first law entered into force on 11 April, employers have withdrawn almost 2,900 applications. Another 2,484 have been rejected.

The employers applying for state aid come from all regions and vary in size, but the majority are from the Ljubljana municipality, followed by Maribor, Celje, Koper and Kranj.

The majority of the companies seeking state aid are from the hospitality sector, followed by retail, car maintenance and repair, transport and storage services.

The agency's register of jobless has been expanding rapidly since the outbreak of the coronavirus.

The country's jobless total increased by almost 10,600 from the end of March to 88,451 by yesterday. As many as 1,075 were newly registered on Tuesday and Wednesday alone.

Labour Minister Janez Cigler Kralj told the newspaper Delo that since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, some 13,000 had registered as jobless, most of them because their fixed-term contracts had expired.

While a year ago there were 76,000 jobless in the country, the figure was expected to drop to some 74,000 by now provided there was no epidemic.

He believes the situation would be even worse had the government not stepped in, but admitted that "we are in for major challenges which we may not yet feel today".