The National Statistics Office Unemployment in Georgia has increased
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Tuesday, December 29
The National Statistics Office has published the employment and unemployment rate calculated according to the new standards of the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The National Statistics Office (Geostat) has released 2020 statistics. Together with the new data, they presented a modified rate of unemployment published in previous years, which was recalculated and showed different numbers.
Until now, unemployment in Georgia was considered a methodology created in 1982, by which the unemployment figures had not much to do with reality. From December 28, Geostat has moved to a new methodology for counting unemployment.
According to the current methodology, only 11.6% of the population of Georgia was considered unemployed, and as a result of the updated methodology, the unemployment rate in 2019 became 17.6%. Compared to the data calculated by the old methodology, the employment rate in Georgia in 2019 was 13-15 % lower than the old standard and 42.7 %. % (55.7 % by the old standard). Unemployment rates from previous years were also calculated.
The point is that until now any citizen living in a rural area was automatically considered self-employed regardless of whether he or she had a real income. That is why the "official" unemployment rate in rural areas was 5.5%, whilst the new methodology shows that the corresponding rate is 16.7 %. According to the new classification, only those who are engaged in the sale of products grown on their land are considered self-employed in rural areas. In particular, under the new standard, persons who use more than 50% of the product for personal consumption are no longer considered self-employed. Such people were retrained either in the unemployed category or in the population outside the labor force, depending on whether they were looking for a job or ready to start one.
As a result of the introduction of the new standard, the share of the self-employed in total employment was reduced from 49.7% to 30.7%.
Geostat also recalculated the unemployment rates of previous years with a new methodology. The new report shows that in the third quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate in the country increased by 0.2 % compared to 2019 and amounted to 17%. Taken into account the changes in methodology, the employment rate of 2019 has decreased to 42.7 %, while earlier it was 55.7 %
With the creation of the new standard, the statistics of the economically active population also changed. According to the new indicators, 50.3% of the total population is economically active, while according to the previous methodology, the level of economic activity was 62.9%.
"Unemployment is traditionally higher among men than women. In the third quarter of 2020, compared with the same period last year, this figure decreased by 1.5 %age points for women and increased by 1.4 %age points for men." The unemployment rate in the third quarter of 2020 was 14.5% for women and 18.9% for men. In the third quarter of 2020, the employment rate for both women and men decreased by 1.7 and 0.7 %, respectively, compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
According to a local ILO councilor, the Geostat can now produce and publish employment and unemployment indicators, as well as other labor market indicators that are comparable to those of other countries, since the organisation updated the Labor Force Survey Questionnaire under a new resolution of ILO adopted at the 19th ILO International Conference, which means that the questionnaire used by Geostat now complies with all standards and regulations.
