Unemployment drops to lowest rate in Romania since before the crisis

European unemployment figures for October are out and the rate fell again in Romania, hitting a post crisis record low. Seasonally adjusted figures from EU statistics office Eurostat put the unemployment rate in Romania at 6.9 percent in October this year – a 0.1 percent fall on the previous month. It is the first time the figure has fallen below 7 percent since 2009, despite having got down to the 7 percent mark several times in the last year. The results show that unemployment in Romania is among the lowest in the EU, only five member states had a lower rate in October and the 6.9 percent rate was well below the 10.7 percent EU 27 and 11.7 percent eurozone averages. Both figures for average unemployment were up by 0.1 percent and the majority of member states showed slight rises or flat unemployment rates. Apart from Romania only Sweden, Austria, Lithuania and Ireland registered monthly falls in unemployment in October. Year on year, the unemployment rate in Romania has fallen 0.4 percent from 7.3 percent in October 2011. Meanwhile, the vacancy rate on the Romanian job market was of 0.63 percent in the third quarter of the year, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (INS). There was some 26,000 available jobs in Romania in the third quarter, a little less than in the third quarter of 2011. The biggest vacancy rates were recorded in health and social assistance – 1.4 percent, public administration – 1.2 percent, water and waste management – 1 percent. However, most of the offered jobs were in the mining industry – some 8,000 jobs of the total. The health and social security systems offered 4,200 jobs, in public administration, 3,000 jobs were available, while in education, some 1,800 jobs were up for grabs at the end of the third quarter. Austria has the EU's lowest percentage of people out of work, just 4 percent, followed by the Netherlands with 5 percent. The picture for the two countries is different to a year ago, when both had unemployment rates of 4.2 percent. Spain and Greece continue to have the EU's highest unemployment, both have rates in excess of 20 percent with Spain rapidly approaching the 25 percent mark. editor@romania-insider.com