The president of Slovenia has described the country's labor market as "medieval" and pledged to reform its employment laws.

Borut Pahor, leader of the Social Democrats party, suggested that improving the flexibility of labor market legislation in the European country will be one of his government's main aims for 2010, Balkans Business News reported.

He was speaking following the release of unemployment data for 2009, which disclosed that the number of people without work rose by 45.9 per cent, taking the national jobless rate to ten per cent.

Mr Pahor claimed that without labor market reform, Slovenia will be among the European Union's least developed countries within a decade.

According to the news provider, he said: "We have a mediaeval labor market. We need to increase its flexibility to make it easier for companies to fire and hire people."

Earlier this month, the Slovenian Employment Service revealed that the number of people registered as unemployed rose by 1.2 per cent to 96,672 in December.