The unemployment rate in Bulgaria stood at 7.62% in July, data of the Employment Agency shows.

A total of 282,211 unemployed persons were registered at job centers. They were 12,075 more than in the previous month.

Over the month, job centers posted 13,182 job vacancies. The vacancies on the primary market during the month were 11,316, most of them in the private sector - 9,724.

The trend continued that the largest number of posted job vacancies were in the processing industry (3,551), trade (2,148) and construction (1,132), followed by real estate and business services (681) and agriculture (673).

As of July 31, a total of 6,327 job vacancies remained unoccupied, of which the most, both in terms of number and in terms of share of the total number of unemployed, were on the primary market - 5,695.

In July 2009, fifteen jobless persons competed for each job vacancy on the average in Bulgaria, compared to eleven in the previous month.

Nearly 12,000 unemployed persons started work through the mediation of job centres. Nearly 80% of them found jobs in the real sector. Compared to July 2008, those unemployed persons who started work on the primary labour market were 935 more, the Employment Agency said.

Source: BTA