The Employment Agency reported that it has registered 8.160 new unemployed claims between early March and late April.

About half of the people who were fired in this period lost their job after their temporary employment contracts expired and were not renewed. Of the rest, a quarter signed a mutually agreed termination of contract, about 10 percent were fired and the rest quit their jobs. Most of the jobs that were lost are in manufacturing (2.804), followed by retail (1.705) and services and hospitality (1.243).

It’s believed that this rise in unemployment is due to the coronavirus epidemic. Finance Minister Nina Angelovska recently put the number of lost jobs at 9.000.