Bulgarian unemployment up to 12.3% in Q2
The unemployment rate in Bulgaria during the second quarter of the year was 12.3 per cent, 1.1 percentage points higher than in the same period of 2011, data from the country’s National Statistical Institute showed on October 1.
The unemployment rate was lower than in the previous quarter, when it hit 12.9 per cent, but that is due to seasonal fluctuations – traditionally, unemployment goes down during the summer months, boosted by seasonal hires in the tourism sector – rather than a structural improvement.
In real terms, the number of people unemployed in Bulgaria in the period covering from the start of April to end-June was 409 500.
The latest seasonally-adjusted data from European Union’s statistics bureau, Eurostat, also released on October 1, put unemployment in Bulgaria at 12.5 per cent at the end of August, unchanged from the previous month. Compared to August 2011, unemployment in Bulgaria was up by 1.4 percentage points, Eurostat data showed.
The figure put Bulgaria among the countries with higher unemployment in the EU, above the average for the euro zone (11.4 per cent) and the bloc as a whole (10.5 per cent), but far behind the two countries with the highest unemployment rates in the EU – Spain (25.1 per cent) and Greece (24.4 per cent).
(Photo: Sergio Roberto Bichara/sxc.hu)
