ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has significant consequences in many areas and has largely contributed to rising unemployment in almost all countries. The situation is similar in Slovavkia, where various degrees of shutdown measures have caused an inflow of newly unemployed people in all age groups. This article focuses on unemployed youth as a vulnerable and disadvantaged group of the working population, as starting a career during a pandemic is complicated or even impossible in some industries under these conditions. In this study, the real situation in Slovakia in 2020-2021 is compared with the development of the job market before the pandemic and its counterfactual prediction under the hypothetical situation of no pandemic. The main contribution of the study is the quantification of the extent of the pandemic impact on unemployed youth, but also on other age groups;this evaluation can be considered very accurate given the counterfactual approach used. The analysis uses a counterfactual before-after comparison together with a statistical model for predicting the development of the inflow of the number of newly unemployed, which provides an accurate quantification of the amount of the pandemic's impact on unemployment. The results of this study can be used in practice to identify the most affected groups of the population and to implement policy measures aimed at mitigating the effects of the pandemic, and then to adjust the intensity and amount of allocated funds that will be needed to be spent to support the placement of young people into the labor market.
ABSTRACT
Research background: In determining the prices in road transport, carriers usually use the calculations based on a so-called routes utilisation coefficient, which allows the carrier to also take the possibility of the return rides without load into account. Currently. it is usually used as a constant from the interval from zero to one. Purpose of the article: Considering a different offer of return transport from individual European Union (EU) countries, it can be assumed that the routes utilisation coefficient should have different values because there is a varying level of non-zero probability that the vehicle will return without a load. This study therefore proposes a new approach to determining the value of this coefficient based on transport direction. The study also aims to identify clusters of EU countries, for which the common value of the coefficient should be set. Methods: The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test was used to verify the assumption of the differences among the means of transport offers. Cluster analysis was used to identify the aforementioned groups of countries. This analysis is based on real data on transport offers to Slovakia from 1 different EU countries. Findings & value added: The results of the analysis can also be used in other EU countries because if significant differences in transport offers to Slovakia exist in individual countries, there is a reasonable assumption that this conclusion will also be valid in other countries. The analysis demonstrated that it is more appropriate to use the routes utilisation coefficient with various values, dependent on the transport direction. For the transport companies, implementation of the obtained results into practice is beneficial to increase their competitiveness through the more precise setting of transport prices, but also to the optimisation of the transport price itself with regard to the expected costs.