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Slovenia GDP growth is projected to slow to 1.4% in 2023, reflecting weaker domestic and external demand, but will pick up to 1.8% in 2024 and 2.7% in 2025, as disinflation continues to support real incomes and global economic conditions improve. EU funds and the government’s flood recovery measures will sustain investment. The tight labour market will fuel stronger wage growth, limiting the pace of disinflation. Fiscal policy will remain expansionary in 2023, reflecting government measures to mitigate high energy prices and recover from the devastating floods of the summer, before tightening in 2024 and 2025. Fiscal consolidation should be undertaken through more efficient prioritisation of spending, as the current expansionary fiscal stance risks exacerbating inflationary pressures. Structural reforms are needed to preserve fiscal sustainability and raise potential growth, including measures to improve the labour force participation of older workers and reduce labour shortages, and to lower the labour tax burden. Economic activity is moderating as foreign demand weakens Economic activity slowed in the third quarter of 2023, with GDP declining by 0.2% quarter-on-quarter due to subdued private consumption and lower exports. The labour market remains tight with the unemployment rate at 3.6% in September. Minimum wages increased (in January 2023) as well as public sector wages (as a result of negotiated wage agreements in October 2022). Overall, this is reflected in strong wage growth, with labour costs and earnings per hour worked both increasing by 14.6% year-on-year in the second quarter. Wage pressures have contributed to high core inflation of 7.0% in the third quarter of 2023 (year-on-year), with headline inflation at 6.3%.
Slovenia
Source: OECD Main Economic Indicators database; Statistics Slovenia; OECD Economic Outlook 114 database; and OECD calculations. StatLink 2 https://stat.link/7ju24x
OECD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK, VOLUME 2023 ISSUE 2: PRELIMINARY VERSION © OECD 2023