15.03.2021
HOW MANY UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE FOUND WORK DURING THE PANDEMIC
The administrative statistics of the Employment Agency show that the total number of people who went from unemployment to employment during the 12 months of the epidemic was 255,031 people, which means that on average more than 21,250 registered unemployed have found their new jobs per month.
In February 2021, the number of unemployed who started work increased by 3,925 compared to January, reaching 18,230. 281 people from the group of pensioners, students and employees have also found their new position through employment offices.
80.5% of those who started working in February are employed in the real economy, most of them employed in the manufacturing sector - 24.0%, followed by trade - 16.0%, government - 6.5%, humane healthcare and social work - 5.0%, construction - 4.9%, etc.
3,560 unemployed persons from the risk groups were employed in subsidized jobs during the month - 101 under employment programs and measures and 3,459 - under schemes of the Operational Program "Human Resources Development". The Employment for You scheme under OPHRD, which started in July 2020 as an anti-crisis measure, has provided employment to a total of 10,080 people, and only in February employment contracts were concluded with 2,273 new unemployed.
6.9% is the level of registered unemployment in the country in February. The administrative statistics of the Employment Agency reported a decrease of 0.1% compared to the previous month, and the growth on an annual basis was by 0.7 percentage points. At the end of the month, the registered unemployed in the labor offices were 225,281, which is 4,469 fewer than in January. On an annual basis, there is an increase of 22,781 people.
During the month, 24,897 new unemployed persons registered with the labor offices, which is 10,129 less than in January and 2,156 more than the number of newly registered in February 2020. Another 495 people from the groups of job seekers employed , students and pensioners also registered with the Employment Agency during the month.
The monitoring of the inflow of registered unemployed in the past year, marked by the Kovid crisis, shows that the most affected by it are those working in the hotel and restaurant sectors - 26.5%, trade - 16.4%, transport - 15.5% of the total number of newly registered.
The anti-crisis measures for short-term employment support, popularly known as “60/40” and “80/20” (project “Short-term employment support in response to the COPID-19 pandemic” under OPHRD), continue to work to preserve employment, as in February, more than 75,000 employees were compensated under these measures.
The Keep Me measure, funded by the OPHRD and the React-EU financial mechanism, to support employees in forced unpaid leave imposed by the suspension of a number of economic activities in order to control the COVID-19 pandemic, provided funds for nearly 48 500 employees. In the one-year period of a complicated epidemic situation, these anti-crisis measures helped to keep the employment of more than 400 thousand employees.
Demand for labor is growing, with 13,469 jobs advertised on the primary labor market in February, or 2,118 (18.7%) more than in the previous month. The largest share of vacancies in the real economy is in manufacturing (27.9%), followed by general government (12.2%), trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (9.9%), hotels and restaurants (9.8%), administrative and ancillary activities (7.9%) and agriculture, forestry and fishing (5.5%).
The most sought-after professions during the month are: staff caring for people; personnel employed in the field of personal services; machine operators of stationary machines and equipment; workers in the mining and processing industry, construction and transport; skilled workers in the production of food, clothing, wood products; sellers; waste collection and related workers; drivers of motor vehicles and mobile equipment; security and protection personnel; metallurgists, machine builders and related workers; craftsmen, etc.
