The unemployment rate increased in the fourth quarter of 2014 to 6.7% from 6.5% in the previous three months, and the number of unemployed reached 618,000, announced on Tuesday the National Statistics Institute (INS).
“By gender, the difference between the two rates of unemployment was 0.9 percentage points (7.1% to 6.2% for men versus women), and on average 1.9 percentage points by residency (7.6 % in urban areas as compared to 5.7% for rural areas). Unemployment reached the highest level (24.1%) among youth (15-24 years),” the INS release reads.
In Q4 of 2014, Romania’s active population was of 9,172,000, of which 8,554,000 were employed and 618,000 people were unemployed.
The employment rate of the working age population (15-64 years) was of 60.8% during the same period, down from the previous quarter by 1.8 percentage points.