POMURSKA - Employment
High unemployment, few new jobs
As a typically agricultural region, Pomurska has throughout the 20th century been permanently faced with a larger workforce than it can use. Before World War II, people used to work as seasonal labourers in the surrounding regions, while in the 1960s and 1970s many found temporary jobs in Austria and Germany. Part of the workforce from rural areas was attracted to local towns, especially where industry was expanding, although there were never enough jobs locally for the entire workforce.
Of the total population 70.1% were of working age in 2002, i.e. between 15 and 65 years, and employment was about 43 200 (-2.4% between 1996 and 2002). The employment rate in 2002 was 40.4% and was higher for men (46%) than for women (35.2%). The female and male activity rates between 1995 and 2002 were more or less stable.
Services sector by region of work employs the largest share of the workforce (46.6%), but this is largely below the national average (56.1%). 44% of the workforce by region of work is employed in industry, while its share in agriculture is three times the national average (9.4%). The number of employees from other regions is very low.
Near one fifth (18.9%) of the workforce in Pomurska is unemployed, which is far above the national average (11.2%) and is the highest unemployment rate in the country.
Nevertheless the share of women (19.1%) among the unemployed in Pomurska is among the highest in Slovenia (12.7%) and the long-term unemployment rate has been decreasing since 1999 and reached 53.3% in 2002.
Below average earnings
In Slovenia there are two General Collective Agreements on the national level. From these agreements, Branch Collective Agreements - which were also adopted at the national level and are obligatory for almost all employers - were derived.
A severe economic crisis and high inflation rates at the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s caused significant fluctuations of wages in real terms. They have been increasing slowly but steadily since 1995. In the period between 1995 and 2002, net wages in Pomurska increased in EUR by only 31.4% which was the smallest increase among all Slovene regions.
In Pomurska, the average net monthly wage in the year 2002 was EUR 567 which was 13,3% below the national average and the lowest in the country. The lowest wages were recorded in the secondary sector (industry) and the highest in the tertiary sector (services), but average net wages in the same sector in Pomurska were 7.5 % below the national average.
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