About 25 percent of young people outside the labor market. Who are most affected?

Unemployment still remains a challenge in our country, especially when we analyze the situation closely through the numbers. In 2023, despite the unemployment rate falling to 10.7%, it is estimated that there are 158,801 unemployed people in total, among whom 52.7% are men and the rest are women. About 71.2% of the unemployed have been unemployed for a year or more, thus discouraged. Compared to the previous year, this indicator has undergone a significant increase of 4.3 percentage points, highlighting the difficulties faced by the unemployed to find a stable job.

"Scan Intel" has analyzed the INSTAT data, to understand more about the unemployment rate, according to educational level. The figures show that young people with secondary education are the most affected. Unemployment for this group is 12.7% or 0.3 percentage points higher than a year ago. On the other hand, even young people with 8-9 years of education face a high unemployment rate of 9.6%, showing that job opportunities for this level of education are limited.

On the contrary, a positive development is the reduction of the unemployment rate for persons with higher education, which has suffered a decrease of 1 percentage point. This shows that higher education continues to offer more employment opportunities, highlighting the importance of investing in more advanced education.

In a closer analysis, we notice that even young people in the age group of 15-29 years face a daily reality related to the lack of employment, not attending school and the lack of involvement in any professional training. Specifically, these young people make up 24.6% of their population. Within this group, almost 49.4% are unemployed. Those who are not employed have different reasons for this situation. Figures show that 2% of them are discouraged by the labor market, feeling that they have no opportunity to find a suitable job.

Another significant portion, 13.4%, are busy with family duties and responsibilities, giving priority to caring for their families over their professional career. The majority, 35.3%, face other reasons that keep them away from the labor market. Meanwhile, a slightly optimistic news is the decrease of 5.7 percentage points in the number of discouraged young people compared to the previous year.