1989 – the 1990s Placed industry goes firstPrivezený priemysel odchádza prvý

Industry that has been placed in a town rather than grown out of it is the most exposed when the planning ends, and after 1989 that is what happened here. The plants shrank or closed, and the district of Rimavská Sobota has had one of the highest unemployment rates in Slovakia ever since. Whole families came to depend on work found elsewhere in the country or abroad. It is worth being blunt about this with students: nothing about the land or the people caused it — the town was given an economy it did not choose, and then the economy was taken away.Priemysel, ktorý do mesta privezú, a nie ten, ktorý v ňom vyrastie, je pri konci plánovania najzraniteľnejší — a presne to sa tu po roku 1989 stalo. Závody sa zmenšili alebo zanikli a okres Rimavská Sobota má odvtedy jednu z najvyšších nezamestnaností na Slovensku. Celé rodiny začali závisieť od práce nájdenej inde v krajine alebo v zahraničí. Oplatí sa to povedať priamo: nemôže za to ani krajina, ani ľudia — mesto dostalo hospodárstvo, ktoré si nevybralo, a potom mu ho vzali.