A declining birth rate has not stopped Slovenia’s population from growing as the number of foreigners, who now represent 9% of all residents, has increased, official statistics show.

In January, Slovenia’s population grew by almost 10,000 compared to the year before, though while the number of Slovenian citizens shrunk by nearly 7,600, the number of foreign citizens increased by 17,400.

The share of foreigners in Slovenia’s population has been increasing steadily over the past decade, from just over 4% in 2012 to about 8% in 2021.

Among the foreign residents in Slovenia, almost 80% are from former Yugoslav countries, 12% are from the EU, and just 8% are from other countries.

Last year, the number of Ukrainian citizens increased the most, by almost 6,100 or 250%, which would be from 2,440 to 8,540.

The number of new arrivals almost doubled in the last quarter of 2022, compared to the year before, to 13,481. This was mainly due to the government extending the validity of the temporary protection status for displaced persons from Ukraine until 4 March 2024.

This means that persons with temporary protection status and registered residence have fulfilled the condition of at least one year’s residence in Slovenia and thus qualify as Slovenian residents.

According to this criterion, almost 6,000 Ukrainians who arrived in Slovenia since the start of Russia’s war in the war-torn country were classified as residents of Slovenia in the last quarter of last year.

In the last quarter of 2022, the natural increase was negative at -3.2, but this is still an improvement compared to -3.9 the year before. The number of births dropped by 10%, and the number of deaths declined by 12%.

(Ela Petrovčič | sta.si)

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