The service's unemployment roll listed 112,385 names at the end of May, 2.2% fewer than in April and 6.1% fewer than the same time a year ago.

A total of 5,966 were newly registered in May, down 8.7% from April and down 2.5% year-on-year. Most of them, over 3,000, lost a job because their fixed-term employment contracts had run out.

In the five months to the end of May, the service registered 40,363 freshly unemployed, a drop of 7.1% compared to the same period a year ago.

Again, most the newly jobless saw their fixed-term jobs coming to an end (23,144), while 4,935 were looking for their first job and 7,022 had been made redundant.

Compared to the first five months of 2014, the total of first-job seekers fell by 18.2% and the number of redundant workers dropped by 17.9%, but there was a bit more of those whose fixed-term jobs ended.

Out of 8,504 that checked out of the unemployment register in May, 5,950 got a job or got self-employed. This is down 18.9% from April and down 21.4% year-on-year.

The Employment service attributed the fall to a cut in the funding for employment subsidies.

The jobless total in May fell across the country, but compared to the same month a year ago the Murska Sobota unit, in the least developed Pomurje region, registered a 8.8% rise in the number of jobless.

There has been some change in the unemployment structure in a year with an increase in the proportions of those with tertiary education (+0.7 percentage points) and those with primary education (+0.3 pp).

The share of women in the jobless total rose by 1.9 points and of long-term unemployed by 3.2 points, but the proportion of youth aged up to 29 dropped by 1.8 points.