Bulgaria's unemployment rate grows to 4.3% in 2023

Youth unemployment, in the ages between 15 years and 29 years, was 8% last year against 7.9% in 2022, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said in an annual labour force survey.

The long-term unemployment rate, representing the people without a job for over a year, was 2.3%. The long-term unemployed represented 52.3% of all unemployed persons in 2023, the NSI said.

The employment rate among those aged 15 to 64 years inched up 0.1 pp on the year, reaching 70.7%. The number of employed people in the age group was about 2.82 million.

The percentage of economically active people in the same age group grew by 0.2 pp to 73.9%, corresponding to about 2.95 million people.

Last year, there were 1.04 million economically inactive people aged between 15 and 64 years, corresponding to an inactivity rate of 26.1%.