Fewer Officially Unemployed

Whereas at the beginning of the second half of the year the number of unemployed in Azerbaijan, according to official data, was 5.59%, now it is 5.4% (245,382 people) of the workforce.

By September 1 of this year, the State Statistics Committee reported 4 million 636.7 thousand able-bodied citizens, while officially registered unemployed were 37,562 against 38.33 thousands in January. This means that from the beginning of the year 768 job applicants managed to fill vacancies.

Holiday consumer deflation also affected the lives of local unemployed - they "got richer" by 0.6%. For each vacancy in August there were two official unemployment claims against three in January and April.

As of September 1, the largest number of people recorded at the exchange as unemployed (13,128 people, of which 683 people receive benefits) was registered in the capital, together with the surrounding villages. Overall 10,109 unemployed people, of which 403 receive allowances, were registered in 18 regions of the Aran economic region. In the rest of the regions, the people themselves have to make ends meet.

The average unemployment benefit at the end of August this year was 202.8 manat (about $ 258.3) against 204 manat in late July.

Experts wary of these data, which are designed by the state statistics based on the methodology of the International Labor Organization.

Director of the Center for Economic Research Ghalib Togrul, commenting official figures for unemployment for Turan, said the official reports are based on private applications to the employment services of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection. People in search of work are reluctant to offices that offer them jobs with low wages. Moreover, the overall level of latent unemployment in the country is more than 3 times higher than the official figures.

He believes that the SSC must classify as unemployed also hundreds of thousands of heads of families, who in the course of agrarian reform failed to acquire land shares. The lands were shared by the collective farm chairmen, who distributed them to relatives and friends. Dispossessed villagers have some areas, but they cannot cultivate them due to various reasons, such as the extreme remoteness of the place of residence, lack of water and irrigation systems, unsuitable soils, lack of access to credit, etc. -17D-