Bulgaria's Unemployment Rate Hits 11.5% in Q3 2012

Business | November 21, 2012, Wednesday // 16:31|  views

Nearly one fifth of the Bulgarian population, aged 15 – 29, was unemployed in the third quester of 2012. File photo

In the third quarter of 2012, the unemployment rate in Bulgaria was 11.5%, by 1.3% higher compared to the same quarter of 2011.

This is the final data from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) published Wednesday.

According to it, the activity rate of population aged 15 - 64 was 68.6%, by 1.9 % higher in comparison with the third quarter of 20111.

The employment rate of population aged 15 - 64 was 60.6%, by 0.8 % above its value for the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Discouraged persons aged 15 - 64 were 210.0 thousand, representing 13.6% of the total number of inactive persons in the same age group.

In the third quarter of 2012, the total number of employed persons (aged 15 years and over) was 3 017.1 thousand, representing 47.9% of population in the same age group. In comparison with the same quarter of 2011, the number of employed declined by 19.4 thousand, and their relative share was by 0.2 % higher.

Between the third quarters of 2011 and 2012, a decrease of employment was observed only for men - the number of employed men decreased by 1.6%. In the third quarter of 2012, 1 584.6 thousand (52.5%) of all employed persons were men and 1 432.5 thousand (47.5%) were women.

From those employed 840.1 thousand have college degrees, or 27.8% of all people with jobs. 1 836.0 thousand (60.9%) have graduated from high school and 341.0 thousand (11.3%) have middle school or elementary education.

Compared with the third quarter of 2011, a decrease was registered in the number of employed who have elementary, middle and high school education.

Out of the total number of employed persons 3.5% (105.0 thousand) were employers, 7.5% (224.8 thousand) were self-employed (without employees), 88.2% (2 660.7 thousand) were employees and 0.9% (26.6 thousand) were unpaid family workers.

In the private sector, there were 1 934.7 thousand (72.7%) employees, and in the public sector - 726.0 thousand (27.3%).

In the third quarter of 2012, 1 868.3 thousand people worked in the service sector (61.9% of all employed persons), in industry - 933.9 thousand (31.0%), and 215.0 thousand (7.1%) were in agriculture, forestry and fishing.

2 978.4 thousand employed persons were under the age of 65.

The employment rate for the population aged 15 - 64 was 60.6% and by sex it was 63.1% for men and 58.0% for women.

The employment rate for population aged 15 - 29 years was 40.3% (44.1% for men and 36.1% for women).

The employment rate for population aged 20 - 64 (a European 2020 indicator) was 64.8%, by 0.4 % higher compared to the same quarter of the previous year. The employment rate for women (61.9%) rose by 0.9 % while for men (67.6%) decreased by 0.2 %.

Employed persons aged 55 - 64 years were 492.5 thousand, 47.0% of population of the same age group, and compared with the third quarter of 2011 an increase in participation in employment was observed for both women (by 3.0 %) and men (by 1.1 %) from this age group.

In the third quarter of 2012, 393.2 thousand persons were unemployed, of whom 231.5 were men and 161.8 were women. In comparison with the third quarter of 2011, the number of unemployed rose by 13.5%.

The unemployment rate increased for the same period by 1.3 % and during the third quarter of 2012 was 11.5%. The rate went up by 1.7 % for men and by 0.7 % for women and reached 12.7 and 10.1% respectively.

The number of long-term unemployed was 221.7 thousand, which was 56.4% of all unemployed and compared to the third quarter of previous year their number rose by 6.5%. The long-term unemployment rate went up by 0.3 % and achieved 6.5% in the third quarter of the current year, respectively 7.2% for men and 5.7% for women.

In the third quarter of 2012, 323.3 thousand (82.2%) of all unemployed persons had previous employment experience, as their number went up by 14.7%, compared to the same quarter of 2011.

The number of the unemployed, who were looking for their first job rose by 8.3% and during the third quarter of 2012 reached 70.0 thousand.

The unemployment rate for the population aged 15 - 29 was 18.9% (20.4% for men and 16.9% for women) and in comparison with the third quarter of 2011 grew up by 2.7 % as the increase was higher for men (by 4.2 %) than women (by 0.7 %).

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Tags: Labor Force Survey, LFS, NSI, National Statistical Institute, NSI, unemployed, employed, unemployment rate, economically active population

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