Unemployment rate rises to 6 pct in Q1, with 23.2 pct youth unemployment

The unemployment rate in Q1 2022 was 6%, up 0.1 percentage points from the previous quarter, and unemployment among young people (15-24 years old) has reached the highest level, 23.2%, according to data published on Friday by the National Institute of Statistics (INS).

By gender, the gap between the two unemployment rates was 0.9 percentage points (6.4% for men compared to 5.5% for women), and by residential areas, 6.2 percentage points (9.6 % percentage points in rural areas, compared to 3.4% in urban areas).

Aside from the 7.743 million people employed, another 610,700 people worked in their own farms to produce agricultural goods intended exclusively or mostly for self-consumption.

The rate of the productive population calculated for the 15-64 age group was 65.7% in Q1 2022 and 71.1% for the 20-64 age group.

According to statistics, the employment rate of the population aged 20-64 was 67.8% in Q1 2022. In the same interval, the active population of Romania was 8.237 million people, of whom 7.743 million people were employed and 494,200 people were unemployed.

The employment rate of the working age population (15-64 years) was 62.4% in Q1 2022, up 0.3 percentage points compared to Q4 2021. The employment rate was higher in men (71.5% compared to 53.1% in women) and for people in urban areas (68% compared to 55.8% in rural areas). The employment rate of young people (15-24 years old) was 20.1%.