ACTUAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE STILL HIGH IN ARMENIA
By Mher Ohanian

Yerkir.am
May 26, 2006

Though officially the unemployment rate has been significantly reduced
in Armenia the number of the people who are paid satisfactory wages
is still as low as it was 5 or 10 years ago.

According to official statistics, the unemployment rate stood at 7.7%
as of April 1 against the 9.3% percent registered in January.

The number of the people seeking employment is 116,200 people; 91,000
of them or 84.7% have an official status of unemployed.

According to official data, the unemployment rate in Armenia is even
lower than that of Germany, which has unemployment rate of about 10%.

Apparently there is a significant contradiction between the official
numbers and the reality. According to estimates, the economically
active part of the Armenian population is 1,163,000 but it is not
known which portion of these people is engaged in seasonal jobs inside
Armenia and outside it.

‘Hidden’ employment

An essential side of the Armenian labor market is the so-called hidden
employment, which can only be revealed through studies. In 2005, the
Armenian Statistics Service tried to carry out such study to reveal
the employment rate among people aged between 15 and 70.

The study showed that those who are employed ‘secretly’ count for only
22.9 percent of the total number of the employed people. The number
of the people who have jobs based on ‘unwritten’ contracts was only
16.2 percent and constituted only 25.4 percent of the total number
of the employed.

The number of the self-employed was only 6.7 percent of the total
number of the employed.

Just a superficial analysis of those numbers indicates that the
official statistics does not show the real picture of the unemployment
rate in the country. The studies carried out among households reveal
that the real unemployment rate in Armenia is 4 times bigger than the
numbers shown by the official statistics. Despite a decrease trend,
the actual unemployment rate in Armenia stood at 31.3 percent in
2005. For comparison, it was 31.6 percent in 2004, 35.3 percent in
2002, 38.4 percent in 2001.