Ljubljana - A total of 70,655 people were registered as unemployed in Slovenia in July, a decline of 0.6% from June and down as much as 21% from July 2020, according to a report released by the Employment Service.

The total kept falling despite the number of the newly registered rising by 54% from June to 5,443. The latter figure was still nearly 34% bellow last year's.

Most of the newly jobless people, 3,133, saw their fixed term expire, their number increasing by 74% compared with June.

Meanwhile, most of the redundancies due to bankruptcies were workers registering after the Italian group Safilo shut down its eyewear production plant in Ormož in June.

A total of 4,089 people found a job or got self-employed in July, a drop of almost 28% compared with the month before and 37% fewer than a year ago.

Unemployment declined across the country, except in the areas of Ptuj in the north-east and Trbovlje in central Slovenia.

Employers reported 13,869 vacancies, 14.4% fewer than in June but 25.1% more than in July 2020.

The latest registered unemployment rate is available for May, at 7.7%, half a percentage points down from April and 1.6 points down from May 2020.

The unemployment rate among women was 8.7% and for men it was 6.9%.

Murska Sobota in the north-easternmost part of Slovenia had the highest joblessness rate, at 10.3%, and Kranj had the lowest, at only 5.3%.