"Unemployment grew throughout the country," the Employment Service said in a press release on Thursday, pointing to a surge in the number first job seekers and a 16.6% decrease in those unemployed who found jobs.

A total of 13,211 newly unemployed people registered with the service in October, a surge of 67.3% on September and a decrease of 10.3% on October 2012.

The newly registered included 5,956 first job seekers, 1,662 redundant workers and 4,359 whose fixed-term contracts expired.

Commenting on the figures, Labour Minister Anja Kopač Mrak said she was not surprised by the hike in the jobless total, which she said was typical at the start of the new academic year.

The minister was however pleased that the number of newly registered unemployed dropped by 5.4% year-on-year, which she said meant Slovenia would probably succeed in containing increase in youth unemployment and that it would not be among the EU countries with biggest growth in youth unemployment this year.

Out of the 9,159 who were checked out of the unemployment registry in October, 5,355 found a job or got self-employed, which is 16.6% fewer than in September but 8.3% more than in October 2012.

At the monthly level unemployment numbers increased the most in Kranj (+5.7%), Koper (+4.7%), Celje (+3.9%), Nova Gorica (+3.9%), Ljubljana (+3.6%) and Murska Sobota (+3.6%).

Only the regional office in Ptuj recorded a decrease in the unemployment total year-on-year (-7.1%), while the biggest surge was recorded in Ljubljana (+11.4%).

A comparison in the educational structure of the unemployed shows the proportion of those with the general secondary education increased the most at the annual level to 28.1%.

The percentage of the unemployed with tertiary education increased to 16.2%, while the proportion of those with vocational education dropped to 23.7% and of those without specialised education dropped to 31.9%.

In the first ten months of the year an average 119,460 unemployed were registered with the service, which is 9.3% more than in the same period last year.

In the same period, 87,591 were removed from the registry, 56,350 because they found a job, which represents 13.1% growth year-on-year.