The number of employed individuals between the age of 15 and 64 in Bulgaria stood at 3.315 mln in Q2, according to a report released today by the National Statistics Institute (NSI).

The number of people between the age 15 – 64 totals 3.521 million. The employment rate for this age group is 63.9%, against 61.6% in H2 last year. The employment rate for men rose 2.9 points up y/y and by 1.8 points for women. Employment rate in cities is 66.6% and 56.3% in rural areas.

Employment rate for the 55 – 64 age group rose 3.1 points y/y to 45.8%.

55% of men between 55 and 64 are employed against 37.9% of women.

1.665 mln people aged 15 – 64 are unemployed. This corresponds to 32.1% of all people in that age group. Broken down to gender, the unemployment rate is 36.7% for men and 27.5% for women.

Nearly half of the people between 15 and 64 do not work because they don't want to (reasons range from studying to taking care of young children).

Some 152,000 people (9.1% of unemployed) aged between 15 and 64 have no hope of finding a job, the NSI report states. Most of them have poor education.

Photo: BGNES