At the beginning of the year, employment increased by 2.8%, the number of employees rose in all regions

Overall, as for the 18 economic activities covered in employment, the number of employees increased in 12, year-on-year, in the first quarter of 2022. The number of employees rose both in manufacturing and services, but the situation remained volatile. A 2,4% growth was recorded in industry, as the most important sector; an increase in the number of employees by more than a quarter was recorded in accommodation and food service activities affected by the pandemic, as well as in arts and entertainment.

In the first quarter of 2022,  according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS)¹⁾, employment grew for the third consecutive quarter year-on-year, a rise reached 2.8% and the number of employees²⁾ in Slovakia increased to 2 million 572 thousand persons. Seasonally adjusted total employment decreased by 0.2% to 2 million 589 thousand persons compared to the previous quarter.

The employment rate³⁾, which expresses the share of employees in the total population, increased by 2.9 percentage points (p.p.) to 75.9% year-on-year.

It is not possible to compare the current data in a longer time series, i.e. with the same period of 2019, because since 2021 a new EU legislation resulted in significant methodological changes and the data are not compatible with data for previous periods. In order to provide basic information on the labour market, the indices between 2021 and 2020 were separately adjusted as much as possible, but not other or older LFS data.

Overall, as for the 18 economic activities covered, the number of employees increased in twelve, year-on-year, in the first quarter of 2022. Employment growth was recorded in both manufacturing and services, but the situation was volatile and only a part of sectors in services grew. In the most important sector of the Slovak labour market, in industry, the number of employees increased by 2.4% to 696 thousand persons year-on-year. In the same period a year ago, however, the number of employees in industry recorded a more significant year-on-year decrease as part of possible adjustments due to a fundamental change in the methodology. At the beginning of 2022, the number of employees also increased in construction, their number rose by 4.4% to 247 thousand persons.

At the beginning of 2022, 2.1% more persons was employed in service sector most influenced by the effects of the pandemic (1 million 559 thousand persons). Overall, services employed more than 60% of employees and the service sector recorded a highly unstable development of the number of employees.

Services recorded a rise in the number of employees, mainly affected by an increase in the number of medium-sized or small service sectors. The absolute strongest growth - by a quarter of the number of employees - was reflected in accommodation and food service activities. However, a year ago, this sector suffered the strongest effects of the pandemic, with a decline in the number of employees of more than 30%. As for the other service sectors that employ more than 150,000 persons more dynamic growth of 9.9% was reflected in education and lower growth in transportation and storage by 1.7%.

Overall, higher growth rate of the number of employees was held back by the continuing decrease in wholesale and retail trade currently by 3.2%.

More significant service sectors, such as human health and social work activities (by 7%) and public administration (by 1.1%) also recorded a decrease in the number of employees.

The positive trend was also visible in the regions of Slovakia, the number of employees as well as the employment rate increased, year-on-year, in all eight regions of the SR. The number of employees grew the most in Bratislavský kraj by 8.3%, then in Žilinský kraj by 4.3% and in Nitriansky kraj by 3.8%.

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Only Prešovský kraj recorded the lowest employment rate below 70%, while in Bratislavský kraj, the employment rate approached the level of almost 83%. The most significant change was recorded in Žilinský kraj, the employment rate rose by 4.2 p.p. to a value of 78%, a significant increase was also recorded in Košický kraj by 3.8 p.p., while the number of employees was above the level of 70% of the region's population.

In the first quarter of this year, a total of 110 thousand persons went to work abroad⁴⁾, which was the same number as a year ago. They were employed mainly in construction (36.5 thousand persons), industry (27.8 thousand persons) and in human health and social work activities (13.3 thousand persons). Within European countries, they worked mainly in Germany, Austria and the Czechia. Absolutely most of those who commute to work abroad came from Prešovský kraj (25.1 thousand persons) and Žilinský kraj (20.4 thousand persons). The highest increase of about one-sixth in commuting to work abroad was in Banskobystrický kraj and Nitriansky kraj.