Pandemic could hit Slovenia harder than financial crisis

Slovenia's gross domestic product (GDP) could fall anywhere between 6 percent and 16 percent in 2020, warns the country's central bank. It wrote that this would make the potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic significantly worse than for the country than the 2008 global financial crisis. Slovenia's GDP dropped 8 percent a decade ago due to its high dependence on exports and foreign trade. The central bank predicted that consumption in 2020 is likely to fall between 2.4 and 9 percent, with the retail, tourism and hospitality sectors expected to be hit with particular force. The crisis is widely expected to lead to significant layoffs and reduce the number of working individuals by up to 4.7 percent. This would translate into a doubling of the unemployment rate by the end of the year.