In total, jobs agency Adem reported 15,417 jobseekers at the end of October, down from 17,971 the same month last year. The unemployment rate stood at 5.4%, the level it held between October 2019 and February 2020. It climbed sharply, hitting 7% amid the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and a nationwide lockdown between March and May last year.
The number of jobseekers under the age of 30 dropped by 22.8% year-on-year, a trend much less marked for those aged 45 or older (-8.1%). And while more people with higher education degrees found jobs (16% drop in unemployment year-on-year), jobseekers with lower secondary (13.7%) and upper secondary (13.5%) education weren’t far behind.
However, long-term unemployment remained stubbornly high. More than half of resident jobseekers (52%) have been signed up with Adem for over a year. And the number of long-term jobseekers decreased more slowly (-9.2%) than that of people registered with Adem for a shorter period of time.
On the plus side, vacancies remained high with 3,909 jobs newly posted with Adem in October--an increase of 33.4% compared to last year. The total number of vacancies posted with Adem was at 11,076--an increase of 52.2% compared to 2020.