site.btaUnemployment Falls for Fourth Straight Month in July

Unemployment Falls for Fourth Straight Month in July

Sofia, August 6 (BTA) - Bulgaria's official unemployment rate decreased for the fourth straight month, the Employment Agency reported on Thursday. At 9.4 per cent, unemployment in July 2015 fell by 0.2 percentage points compared with June 2015 and 1.2 percentage points compared with July 2014.

In July 2015, there were 309,781 jobless people registered at job centres, down by 5,920 compared with June 2015. Compared with July 2014, they decreased by 37,468 people, which is the largest year-on-year decrease for the month of July since 2008.

There were 47,354 unemployed people aged 29 and younger in July 2015, accounting for 15.3 per cent of all jobless people. Their number and share decreased for the sixth month in a row, month on month.

A total of 19,310 unemployed people found jobs in July 2015, including 14,654 persons finding employment on the primary labour market and 4,656 persons taking subsidized jobs. In the latter group, 4,117 people became employed under Operational Programme "Human Resources Development", 461 under the Employment Programme and 78 under the Employment Promotion Act.

The real economy posted 13,698 job vacancies at job centres in July 2015. The largest number of job vacancies on the primary market were jobs of potentially seasonal nature, including 4,184 positions in the manufacturing industry, 2,484 in trade, and 1,187 in the hotel and restaurant business. Other vacancies were announced in education (835), administrative and auxiliary services (799), construction (688), real estate (671), transport, storage and postal services (561), agriculture, forestry and fisheries (465), civil service (369), and professional services and scientific research (281), among others.

A total of 482 job vacancies were posted under employment programmes, and 3,049 under Operational Programme "Human Resources Development."