site.bta11,000 Unemployed People Find Jobs in January 2025

A total of 11,123 unemployed people in Bulgaria found jobs in January 2025, and 301 employed people, students and retirees also found work through intermediaries, the Employment Agency reported on Tuesday.

As at the end of January 2025, there were 158,040 registered jobless people in the country, putting the unemployment rate at 5.57%, down by 0.28 percentage points compared with January 2024. (The unemployment rate is the share of registered jobless people in the economically active population between 15 and 64 years of age, as counted in the population census of 2021.)

Roma and youth mediators, along with Employment Agency officers, played a substantial role in invigorating the labour market. They assisted over 4,970 economically inactive people to register and thus improve their chances of finding work.

Employers posted 9,232 job openings in January 2025. Most of them were in the manufacturing industries (25.6%), followed by the civil service (13.0%), education (11.3%), trade and auto and motorcycle repairs (10.9%), hotels and restaurants (8.8%) and administrative and auxiliary services (5.5%).

Job seekers were most interested in working as care assistants, personal service employees, operators of stationary machinery and equipment, shop assistants, skilled workers in food production, tailoring and woodworking, extractive and manufacturing industry employees, construction and transport workers.

Subsidized jobs were provided to 744 members of vulnerable groups in January 2025. These included 108 people employed under programmes and measures funded from the state budget and 636 individuals assigned to work under the Human Resources Development Programme 2021-2027, co-funded by the European Social Fund Plus.

The month in review saw the issuance of more than 14,400 training vouchers for both employed and unemployed people. This measure is another step forward in upgrading the skills and the competitiveness of the labour force, the press release said.