LJUBLJANA, June 11 (Xinhua) — The Bank of Slovenia expected the country’s economy for 2024 to grow by 2.5 percent, revising up its December projection of 2.2 percent.

The central bank also raised its growth projections for the next two years, from earlier 2.3 percent to 2.6 percent in 2025 and from 2.5 percent to 2.8 percent in 2026. Slovenia’s economy expanded by 1.6 percent in 2023.

“Favourable economic activity is continuously supported by high employment, real wage growth and gradual improvement of business sentiment,” the bank said in its regular report.

It said that the growth will be boosted by higher household and state spending which will reflect state investment in reconstruction after record floods in August 2023.

“In the labor market … the unemployment will remain at record low level while wage growth will gradually ease but still remain relatively high,” it added.

The number of jobless people fell to 44,088 in May, which not only represented a decrease of 6.6 percent year-on-year, but also marked the lowest level since Slovenia’s independence in 1991, the national Employment Service said last week.

The central bank also revised the country’s average annual inflation for 2024 down to 2.4 percent from earlier forecast of 3 percent. But it expects inflation to rebound to 3 percent in 2025, mainly due to expected wage growth.

Slovenian doctors and dentists have been on a partial strike from January, demanding hefty wage hikes, while public administration employees have also started a partial strike for higher wages over four months ago.

The government is negotiating with public sector trade unions, with expectations of a general hike in public sector wages from January 2025.