Ljubljana, 12 August – There were more than 20,500 job vacancies in Slovenia in the second quarter of the year, up almost 25% from the first quarter, with demand for workers strongest in hospitality and in culture and entertainment. The country’s vacancy rate thus rose to a quarterly record of 2.6%, the Statistics Office (SURS) said on Thursday.
As part of the second wave of the epidemic, lockdown restricting some businesses was in place from 19 October 2020 to 16 May 2021, or more than half of quarter two.
But it was in this period that employers started looking for workers more intensively after an almost six-month lull, which made quarter two very dynamic, SURS said on Thursday.
Demand for workers was recorded across all sectors, but doubled in hospitality and in culture and entertainment, both of which were practically fully closed during the epidemic.
A rise in demand for new workers in quarter two increased by 90% or by some 9,700 over the second quarter in 2020, when the country was deep in its first lockdown.
The annual growth was the most robust in manufacturing, which had almost four times more vacancies (nearly 5,800), and in hospitality, which had 1,500, up 25%.
Only electricity supply and education saw lower demand for new workers in quarter two year on year.
The bulk of vacancies available in April-to-June were advertised by employers with ten or more employees – around 12,700 or almost 62% of all vacancies in the country.
Vacancy rate in quarter two rose by 0.5 of a percentage point to a record 2.6% compared with quarter one and by 1.2 percentage point annually.
The quarter two growth was impacted by a considerable rise in vacancies for a second quarter in the year.
Since SURS started carrying out this survey in 2008, the 2.6% vacancy rate was achieved twice before, in the third quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019.
As for occupied posts, deseasoned figures show they increased 6,300 to around 777,200 from quarter one.
In annual comparison, occupied posts rose by almost 14,100 or 1.8%, which was most notable in the construction industry and in health and social care.
In hospitality, the number of occupied posts increased by 2.8% compared with the first quarter, which is less than in the same period last year.
