IDENTIFYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN UNEMPLOYMENT AND WAGE DEVELOPMENT IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

The problem of high unemployment and expected further growth repetitively appears among major global trends, along with the deepening of social instability. This leads to increased inequalities and deepening polarization of wealth as one of the top three global risks. The aim of this paper is to present the results of unemployment and wage development in Slovakia for the period 2000 – 2015 (at the national and regional levels). The added value for Slovakia results is a comparison of the relevant indicators between Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Hungary. The authors further focus on the wage development dependence on the development of unemployment. Analyses in the paper are based on data from Eurostat, OECD, the Statistical Office and the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family in Slovakia. Findings (using quantile regression): increasing unemployment, wages in the districts of SR did not grow (in the focused period), increases in wages in districts with higher unemployment rates were lower than in districts with a lower unemployment rate, in the least developed districts reduced unemployment led to a minor increase in wages than expected.