The highest unemployment is among young people under 24 years old (the unemployment rate was 22.8%), according to the latest report released by the National Institute of Statistics on Thursday. At the same time, in the case of young people, the long-term unemployment rate (unemployed for six months or more) was 12.6%, and the incidence of long-term unemployment (the share of young people unemployed for one year or more in total unemployed) among young people by 55.2%.
In 2022, the employment rate for population aged 20–64 years was 68.5%, increasing by 1.4 percentage points as compared to the previous year. Last year, the economically active population of Romania was 8270.8 thousand persons, out of which 7806.4 thousand were employed persons and 464.4 thousand were unemployed persons.
In 2022, the employment rate for working age population (15–64 years) was 63.1%, increasing by 1.2 percentage points as compared to the previous year. As in the previous years, the employment rate was higher for men (71.5% as against 54.4% for women). By residence area, the employment rate was higher for residents from urban area (68.6% as against 56.3% in rural area). The employment rate for youth (15–24 years) was 19.7%, while for elderly (55–64 years) was of 46.7%, INS says.
The highest employment rate for working age population was registered for graduates of higher level of education (89.5%). 64.6% of persons with medium level of education and 36.6% of those with low level of education were employed.
The number of employees, increasing as compared to the previous year (+73.0 thousand persons), continues to hold the highest weight among employment (85.3%). In 2022, self employed and contributing family workers represented 13.3% of total employment.
Distribution of employed population by ownership type shows that the private sector absorbed 82.0% of the employed persons; the public sector concentrated 17.3% of the employment and 0.7% of employed persons worked in the mixed sector.
Professionals represented 18.2% of total employment. Significant weights in total employment were also held by craft and related trades workers (17.7%) and service and sales workers (17.4).
Out of the total number of employed persons, 11.3% worked in the agricultural sector, 32.8% in industry and constructions and 55.9% in services. In non–agricultural activities 6928.1 thousand persons were employed, significant shares being held by those working in manufacturing (22.2%), trade (19.9%) and constructions (11.0%).
283.1 thousand persons, representing 3.6% of total employment, worked part–time in 2022. Most of the part–time workers were working in agriculture (73.6%).
In 2022, the actual average duration of working week in main activity was 39.6 hours/week; 44.2 thousand persons carried out also secondary activities, working on average 11.5 hours/week.
Unemployment rate was 5.6%, equal to that recorded in the previous year. By sex, the gap between the two unemployment rates was 1.0 percentage point (6.0% for men as against 5.0% for women), while by residential area it was 5.7 percentage points (8.9% for rural area, as against 3.2% for urban area).
The unemployment rate reached the highest level (22.8%) among young persons (15–24 years).
Unemployment affects in a higher measure the graduates of low and medium level of education, for which the unemployment rate was 14.2%, respectively 5.2%. The unemployment rate for higher education graduates was of only 1.7%.
The long–term unemployment rate (weight of unemployed for one year and over in active population) was 2.2% and the incidence of long–term unemployment (weight of unemployed for one year and over in total unemployment) was 38.5%.
For young people (aged 15–24 years), the long–term unemployment rate (unemployed for six months and over) was 12.6% and the incidence of long–term unemployment was 55.2%.