Unemployment rate in Slovakia down in February

The unemployment rate in Slovakia recorded a drop of 1.17 percentage points on a yearly basis in February, the country's labor ministry announced at a press conference on Friday.

"After two months(December and January), when a negative trend in terms of new jobs prevailed, February saw a completely different trend." said Jan Richter, the minister of labour.

According to Richter, some 6,000 jobs were added in companies in February.

"Also positive is that this trend is also being seen when it comes to people working via so-called work performance agreements, as 21,000 people joined the labour market working on the basis of this sort of agreement," Richter said.

Six out of eight Slovak regions posted monthly falls in the unemployment rate in February.

The Banska Bystrica region in central Slovakia was the only region to post a monthly increase in joblessness by 0.21 percentage points, with the rate in Kosice in the eastern part of the country remaining unchanged. Endit