New figures from SURS show that both arrivals and overnight stays rose by around 8% year-on-year in August, with more than one million of the former and 2.9 million of the latter. Foreign tourists accounted for 78% of all overnight stays, with the largest group coming from Germany (16% of all overnight stays, or just under 365,000), followed by visitors from Italy (13%), the Netherlands (9%), France (6%) and the Czech Republic (just under 6%).

The top attractions, in terms of nights stayed, were mountain resorts (37% of the total, or 1,074,552), followed by coastal resorts (21%), health/spa resorts (16%), and the city of Ljubljana (11%).

When choosing where to spend the night 33% of such stays, over 956,000, were in hotels, followed by private rooms, apartments and so on at 25%, and camping sites at 22%.

So far this year, up to the end of August, 11.8 million overnight stays have been recorded in Slovenia, on the back of 4.5 million arrivals, up 4% and 6%, respectively, on the first eight months of 2018.

More detailed data on tourist arrivals and overnight stays can be found on SURS

STA, 22 October 2019 - The average disposable income of Slovenian households was up 5.8% across Slovenia in 2018 on the year before. The northern Koroška region had the highest disposable income per citizen, followed by south-eastern and central Slovenia, shows the Statistics Office data released on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the lowest disposable income was recorded in the north-eastern Pomurje region.

The average Slovenian household disposable income stood at some EUR 11,870.

It increased the most in the Posavje region and south-east Slovenia - by 7.3% in each, and the least in Pomurje - by 4.3%.

The household disposable income mainly depends on wages, which were up by 7.2% in 2018 compared to the previous year.

The regional disparities were slightly bigger in 2018 than in 2017; however, they have significantly reduced since 2008.

Compared to the national average, the disposable income of Slovenian regions varied by 3.3% in 2018, while in 2008 the average gap between regions was at 6.6%.

More details on this data can be found here, while more statistics on Slovenia are here

STA, 16 October 2019 - Foreign tourists who visited Slovenia in April and May spent an average EUR 178 a day in the country, with tourists from non-European countries spending more, EUR 264, the latest statistics released on Wednesday show.

The sum was spent on accommodation, food and drinks, fare around Slovenia, leisure and the purchase of other goods or services, the Statistics Office (SURS) said.

In Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, the sum was the highest, amounting to EUR 249, whereas tourists visiting municipalities in mountainous areas spent the least, EUR 129.

An average Austrian tourist spent EUR 135 a day in Slovenia, an Italian spent EUR 126 and a German tourist EUR 124.

Hotels proved to be the most popular choice for tourists in the spring, with four in five foreign tourists choosing them as their accommodation.

As many as 80% of the tourists who were accommodated at hotels were in Slovenia on a private visit and 18% on a business trip.

Three quarters of those who visited for private reasons were in Slovenia on a holiday, whereas the share of those who were here on business was the highest in Ljubljana, at 30%.

The majority of tourists book accommodation on their own; in April and May 31% of foreign tourists did so directly at the hotel of their choice, 26% used online options and 25% had the help of a travel agent.

Of the foreign tourists accommodated at hotels, 45% visited Slovenia with a spouse or partner, 22% travelled on their own, 11% with their family and just as many with friends.

The majority of the tourists accommodated at hotels came from Italy (15%), followed by Austria (12%) and Germany (8%).

As many as 93% of Italian tourists and four in five Austrian and German tourists visited Slovenia for private reasons, SURS data also shows.

Central bank figures, released on Tuesday, meanwhile show that revenue from foreign tourists visiting Slovenia continued to grow in August.

It rose by 1.3% to EUR 398 million over August 2018 and totalled EUR 1.91 billion in the first eight months of the year, a rise of 3.2% year on year.

In 2018, the country's revenue from foreign tourists reached EUR 2.71 billion, up almost 12%, while Slovenia's goal is EUR 3.7 to 4 billion until 2021.

More details on this data can be found here

In 2018 the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS), which keeps an excellent website, carried out a survey to find the self-assessed wellbeing of people living in Slovenia aged 16 and over. Various areas of life were covered, with responses ranging from 0 for not at all satisfied, to 10 for completely satisfied.

Love and money

The results showed that people were most satisfied with their personal relationships, those with family, friends, neighbours and co-workers, which got an overall rating of 8.6. Moreover, the vast majority of respondents (92%) rated their degree of satisfaction with this area of their life as 7 or above, with pupils and students being the group most satisfied in this regard.

Turning to money, the average level of satisfaction was 6.3, with 17% of respondents answering from 0 to 4, 39% 7 or 8, and 13% 9 and 10.

Work and play

What are the secrets to satisfaction?

The average assessment of overall life satisfaction was 7.3, with a person’s response being heavily dependent on their health, while their position in the labour market, financial situation, leisure, friends, personal relationships, and so on also had predictable impacts.

Those respondents who stated that they were happy all the time rated their overall satisfaction at 8.5, while those who reported never feeling happy in the previous four weeks rated it 4.5

The level of satisfaction is also closely related to feeling happy. Those who were happy all the time assessed their overall life satisfaction with 8.5, while those who in the past four weeks were never happy assessed their overall life satisfaction with 4.5.

Nervous and calm

The survey also asked how nervous people had felt in the previous four weeks, with 12% of respondents saying they were nervous all or nearly all the time, with 14% of women saying this and 10% of men. While young people were happier than old people, they were also more nervous, with this being reported by an incredible 24% of young women, compared to 11% of young men.

Finally, just under two-thirds of people (62%) stated that they felt calm most of the time in the previous four weeks, with slightly more women than men giving this response.

You can see more on this data at SURS

STA, 11 September 2019 - The EU's statistics office Eurostat has projected that Slovenia will have a population of below 1.8 million in 2100, which is a 13% drop compared to 2018. Almost a third of the population in Slovenia is projected to be aged 65 or older at the end of the century.

The projection is part of the Eurostat's EUROPOP 2018 survey involving all EU member states, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, the national Statistics Office reported on Wednesday.

For Slovenia, it shows that the country's population is to increase until 2023, where it is projected to stand at 2,088 million, and then to start declining gradually.

On 1 January 2100, Slovenia is projected to have a population of 1,796,000, or 13% less than it had in 2018, which is the baseline year for the projection.

Related: Non-Slovenes Now Represent 6.9% of Slovenia's Population

Slovenia's fertility rate is expected to gradually increase in the future, to stand in 2100 at 1.77, compared to today's rate of 1.61, meaning the total number of children born or likely to be born to a woman in her lifetime.

At the same time, life expectancy at birth is expected to increase, standing at 89 for boys and at 93 for girls born in Slovenia in 2100.

Despite the expected higher fertility rate, Slovenia's population is projected to grow older further. While persons aged 65 or older in Slovenia represented a 19.4% share of the entire population in 2018, this share is expected to stand at 32% in 2055, and at 31% in 2100.

Related: Slovenia’s Aging Population, in Graphic Form

The share of children (persons under 15) is expected to grow for a few years, and then to start to drop, reaching the lowest point in 2037, at 12.9%. Slow growth from that point on is projected, with the share expected to stand at 13.9% in 2100.

The full dataset from Eurostat can be found here, while all our stories on demographics in Slovenia are here

STA, 8 September 2019 - Foreign companies accounted for 5.6% of all companies in Slovenia in 2017 but created over 27% of value added, roughly on a par with 2016.

These companies employed almost 26% of all workers, and allocated 39% of their expenses in Slovenia for R&D, the latest Statistics Office data shows.

A foreign company, or a foreign inward affiliate, is according to the statisticians an enterprise which is resident in Slovenia but controlled by an institutional unit outside Slovenia.

Source: SURS

There were a total of 8,018 such companies in Slovenia in 2017.

A third of all value added and a third of all investments by these companies was generated by companies controlled from Germany and Austria.

The largest share of R&D spending, a third, was generated by companies controlled from Switzerland.

Together with Germany-affiliated ones, they generated almost 60% of all R&D expenditure by foreign companies in Slovenia.

More than half of the entire value added generated by foreign companies was attributable to companies in industry.

Foreign inward affiliates in Slovenia were controlled from 106 countries, but in more than 90% of the cases from Europe. Approximately half of them had their controlling company in the EU.

The majority, or almost two-thirds of them, were controlled from Italy, Serbia, Russia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austria, Croatia and Germany.

The Statistics Office says that economically the most important foreign affiliates were controlled from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

More details on this data can be found here

STA, 12 August 2019 - Slovenian youths are mostly satisfied with their lives, and they are better educated than their parents. But financially, they still feel the effects of the economic crisis and their position on the labour market is much more precarious, show statistics released ahead of International Youth Day.

There were 309,000 persons in Slovenia aged between 15 and 29 at the beginning of the year, more than half of whom were enrolled in education programmes. Just over 161,000 were employed, the Statistics Office says.

A plurality of young women worked in the services sector and in commerce, while young men were most commonly working in construction, maintenance of buildings, metalworking and similar professions.

Despite having work, youths are in a much more precarious position than older employees. As many as 46% had fixed-term contracts, compared to just 16% for the entire working population.

There were 16,000 unemployed persons in the 15-20 age group, which translates into a 9% unemployment rate, or four percentage points higher than the overall unemployment rate.

The average monthly gross wage for this group amounted to almost EUR 1,300 in 2018, or around three-quarters of the average gross wage for all employees in Slovenia last year.

Among the 309,000 persons in Slovenia aged between 15 and 29, only 5% were neither included in formal education programmes nor were they employed. This puts Slovenia among the most successful countries in this respect.

In the 2018/2019 school year, there were 73,000 secondary school students and 67,000 university students. Another 17,000 persons in this age group were enrolled in adult education programmes, which means that more than half of this age group was attending some form of school.

Last year, the share of persons with tertiary education in the 30-34 age group was 42.7%, up from 24.6% in 2005 and from 34.8% in 2010. The share has been constantly above 40% since 2013, the Statistics Office said.

The at-risk-of-poverty rate for this age group was 11.7%, slightly lower than that for the entire population in Slovenia (13.3%).

This age group is the most satisfied in general with their lives, with their average grade on a one-to-ten scale standing at 8.1 in a recent survey, well above the average of 7.3 for the entire population.

The Statistics Office published the data ahead of International Youth Day, marked on 12 August. It is an awareness day designated by the UN in 1999 in to draw attention to cultural and legal issues faced by youths.

While the UN places emphasis on education for this year's International Youth Day, the Slovenian Youth Council (MSS) has pointed to housing. It has also warned about the growing pessimism among the young regarding their prospects of becoming independent.

The organisation has told the STA that there was a lack of public apartments for young people and that market housing was getting increasingly expensive, even as young people cannot get bank loans.

The council is also critical of what it perceives as centralisation of the country, saying that "not all young people want to live in Ljubljana" and that the state encourages migration from rural areas.

Another challenge is the shortage of jobs for highly educated persons, the MSS said, noting that the current generation of young people will be the first after the Second World War whose quality of life is worse than that of their parents.

Tin Kampl, the head of the government Office for Youth agrees that young people today have more problems than the previous generations. He pointed to problems related to employment, housing and getting independent, which is "something out of reach for a majority of young people".

While noting that young people today had more knowledge and experience and more opportunities to participate in society, Kampl highlighted emigration for work or study which he said left a bitter aftertaste if it is necessity-driven.

According to a survey by the Nefiks institute for the promotion of informal education, as many as 44% of women in Slovenia aged between 20 and 35 sees going abroad as a solution if they fail to get a job in their own country.

The survey has found that only 47% of young women are satisfied with their current standard of living, while 44% are satisfied with their current job. Nefiks has noted that young women in Slovenia are proactive and flexible in job seeking.

With employment of young women connected with family planning, the survey has also shown that 44% of young women who participated in it do not plan a family or do not want to have a family. "Considering that the survey covers women in their fertile age, this is a high percentage," Nefiks said.

All our stories on demographics in Slovenia are here

We often report on Slovenia’s demographics at TSN, with regard to an aging population, the growing proportion of immigrants, and so on, but how does the country compare with the rest of Europe when it comes to overall size and the next 30 years?

Using data from a variety of sources, Facts Maps has put together a clear map of the projected changes in population for 41 countries in Europe. For copyright reasons we’ll just embed a small version here, which you can then click on to see the full sized version.

This suggests that quite dramatic changes are set to take place in Slovenia over the next 30 years, with the country forecast to see a 23.18% fall in population, from 2.079 million in 2017 to just 1.597 million in 2050. These figures predict that Slovenia will see the 5^th biggest fall in population, in percentage terms over the coming three decades, “beaten” only by Estonia (-29.41%), Latvia (-35.86%), Lithuania (-37.65%) and Moldova (-44.16%). Of the 41 countries listed, only 14 are projected to see a growth in population, headed by Luxembourg (+48.37%), Ireland (+33.04%) and Iceland (+21.49%). Interestingly, two of Slovenia’s neighbours are also expected to grow: Austria (+4.27%) and Italy (+3.47). Both Croatia and Hungary will see declines, of -7.73% and  12.66%, respectively.

What are the causes? Facts Maps doesn’t say, but one can image a falling birth rate (see Slovenia’s Population Falls for 2nd Year Running, with More Deaths than Births) and emigration, although with regard to the latter it should be noted that net migration remains positive in Slovenia (and non-Slovenes now represent 6.9% of the population).

Slovenia’s aging population 1971 - 1961, in graphic form - see more here

And what about the implications? A smaller population, and a smaller one of working age, in particular, will put pressure on the tax base of the country while spending on pensions and healthcare will rise (see Population Ageing & Shrinking Present Serious Problems for Slovenia’s Future). One the positive side, at least for some, housing prices could fall along with demand.

You can see more details on this map at Fact Maps, which also has many other fascinating maps of Europe (and beyond) to explore.

STA, 6 August 2019 - The latest Eurobarometer survey has shown Slovenians are the strongest supporters of the euro in the entire EU, with as many as 88% of those polled favouring it.

Slovenia is followed by Estonia and Portugal (both 85%) and by Finland and Ireland (both 84%), while support by 81% of respondents was recorded in Germany.

The single currency enjoys the support of 62% of all EU citizens, the same as last autumn and the highest level since spring 2007.

The share of those who are not in favour of the euro in the EU-28 has dropped by two points to 30%, the lowest since spring 2004.

The average support for the euro in the 19-member eurozone, meanwhile, stands at 76%, up one percentage point from last autumn and eight points from spring 2016.

The figure makes for the strongest support since spring 2004 in the euro area, shows the survey, which was carried out among almost 27,500 respondents in June.

But the share of those who are still not in favour of the single currency has dropped by two points to 18%.

The euro was introduced in 1999, with Slovenia adopting it as of 2007, only two and a half years after it joined the EU.

Despite a number of price rises that the switch-over entailed, the euro has enjoyed strong support in the country ever since.

Figures from Eurostat and the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SURS) give slightly different results with regard to the number of Slovenes able to take a one-week vacation away from home in 2018, although both find that the figure is above the EU average.

SURS reports that 73% of Slovenian households could afford a one-week vacation away form home for all family members in 2018, the highest since such data started being collected (in 2005), and up one percentage point on 2017. More households in the Osrednjeslovenska statistical region (81%) were able to take a trip, while the lowest proportion was found for the Pomurska statistical region (61%).

The most common time for taking such a trip was the summer, July and August accounting for 18% of the total. The most common destination was Croatia (61% of all private trips made abroad), followed by Italy (7%), Austria (6%), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (5%).

Eurostat has also released data on the size of the EU population aged 16 or over could afford a one-week annual holiday away from home in 2018. Overall, the figure is 71.7%, an improvement on 2013, when just 60.5% of the population could afford a summer vacation. In contrast, Eurostat data finds that 78.2% of Slovenians were able to pay for a 7-day vacation

The countries with the most citizens able to travel were Sweden (90.3%), Luxembourg (89.1%) and Denmark (87.8%). At the other end of the scale, with the fewest individuals going on vacation away from home in 2018, were Romania (41.1%), Croatia (48.7%,), Greece and Cyprus (both 49%). The complete Eurostat dataset can be found here.