Unemployment durations of job losers in a labour market in transition

Slovakia is one of the Central European countries in transformation from a centralized command system to a decentralized market economy. This paper st udies the labour market position of Slovak job losers. Using data from labo ur force surveys we analyse exit rates out of unemployment. We find that ma le, young, higher educated job losers in districts with low unemployment ra tes have substantially shorter unemployment durations than their counterpar ts. There is evidence that for some job losers it is very hard to find a ne w job. JEL classification: C41, J64, J65.