Employment rate of working-age population in Romania reaches 58% in first quarter

The employment rate of people aged 15 to 64 years was of 58 percent in the first quarter of 2011 in Romania, up 0.1 percentage points compared to the one recorded in the same period in 2010, and compared to the previous quarter, according to the National Statistics Institute (INS). The employment rate of people aged 20 to 64 years was of 62.5 percent, at a distance of 7.5 percentage points of the national target of 70 percent set in the context of Europe 2020 strategy. In the first quarter in 2011, Romania's active population was of 9.81 million people, of which 9.06 million were employed and 741,000 were unemployed. Employment was higher for men with, 64.6 percent compared to 51.5 percent for women, and for people residing in urban areas, 58.3 percent, compared to 57.6 percent recorded in the rural areas. The unemployment rate was 7.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011, up from the previous quarter when recorded 7.3 percent, but down from the corresponding quarter of previous year, when the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent. See the full report here(in Romanian; PDF version) Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com (photo source: sxc.hu)