June 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's registered unemployment rate eased by 0.1 percentage point (pp) month-on-month in May to 4.5%, the Employment Agency said on Wednesday.
On an annual comparison basis, the jobless rate declined by 1.2 pp, the government agency said in a statement.
A total of 14,879 unemployed people found a job with the help of labour offices in May, while 19,699 people registered as unemployed, or 7,267 fewer that in the same month of 2021. The processing industry, retail and hospitality sectors contributed the most to employment in May, ensuring 48.7% of the jobs that were filled last month.
At the end of May, there were 147,477 registered unemployed in Bulgaria - 3,070 fewer compared to April and 20.7% fewer compared to the like month of last year.
There were 12,951 job vacancies registered with labour offices in May, or a decline of 1,756 on the previous month and 4,361 fewer year-on-year, the monthly data from the agency showed.
Over 5,600 Ukrainians with temporary protection status in Bulgaria have already found employment in the country on a labour contract, or more than 15% of the working age population out of the people fleeing the war in Ukraine, the Bulgarian government's press office said in a separate statement earlier.
According to the government's statistics, the highest number of those refugees -- 43.9% -- have found employment in the hospitality sector, with 11.6% working in the production and distribution of electricity and fuels, and 11.4% in the processing industry.
A total of 78,000 Ukrainians have remained in Bulgaria, out of the 330,000 who have fled here to date.