17.05.2021

REGISTERED UNEMPLOYMENT RETURNED TO PRE-COVID-19 LEVELS

6.1% [1] is the level of registered unemployment in April according to administrative statistics of the Employment Agency. The decline on an annual basis was by 2.8 percentage points - from 8.9% in April 2020, and the decrease compared to the previous month was by 0.4%.

The registered unemployed during the month were 200,417, which is 13,635 fewer than in March and 92,393 fewer than a year earlier. During the month, 21,924 new unemployed persons registered with the labor offices, a decrease of 3,255 persons compared to March this year and 65,139 compared to April 2020. Another 489 people from the groups of jobseekers employed, students and pensioners, also registered with the Employment Agency during the month.

The number of unemployed persons who started working in April was 24,502. The data from the administrative statistics of the Employment Agency show a minimal decrease of 645 in number compared to March, but almost double the increase compared to the same month of the previous year (12,953). Another 399 people from the groups of pensioners, students and employees also found their new jobs through the employment offices.

79.6% of those who started working in April are employed in the real economy, most of them employed in the manufacturing sector - 21.0%, followed by those in trade - 13.7%, hotels and restaurants - 11.3% , agriculture, forestry and fisheries - 6.9%, construction - 6.1%, general government - 5.5%, administrative and support service activities - 3.8%, human health and social work activities - 3.6%, etc.

5,003 unemployed persons from the risk groups were employed in subsidized jobs during the month - 757 under employment programs and measures and 4,246 - under schemes of the Operational Program “Human Resources Development” (OP HRD). The "Employment for you" scheme under the OP HRD, which started in July 2020 as an anti-crisis measure, has provided employment to a total of 20,450 people, and only in April employment contracts were concluded with 1,756 new unemployed.

In order to preserve employment, the anti-crisis measures for short-term employment support continued to work in April - the well-known "60/40" and the project "Short-term employment support in response to the COVID-19 pandemic" under the OP HRD. In April, more than 165,000 employees were supported under these measures. The “Keep Me” measure, funded by the OP HRD 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 to nearly 52,000 busy faces.

The requested jobs on the primary labor market in April were 18,130 or 322 (1.7%) less than the previous month and over 7,900 (77.3%) more than in the same month of 2020. The largest share of vacancies Jobs in the real economy are advertised in manufacturing (25.6%), followed by hotels and restaurants (21.6%), trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles (9.4%), general government (7.6%), administrative and support service activities (6.9%) ) and agriculture, forestry and fisheries (6.3%).

The most sought-after professions during the month are: staff employed in the field of personal services; machine operators of stationary machines and equipment; waste collection and related workers; workers in the mining and processing industry, construction and transport; staff caring for people; sellers; drivers of motor vehicles and mobile equipment; agricultural, forestry and fishery workers; skilled workers in the production of food, clothing, wood products and related; metallurgists, machine builders and related craftsmen, etc.

[1] The unemployment rate is defined as the share of the registered unemployed in the economically active population aged 15-64, established in the 2011 Census.