Unemployment rate reaches 4.75% in Romania at the end of November

The unemployment rate in Romania reached 4.75% at the end of November last year, down 0.13 percentage points compared to November 2015, according to data from the National Agency for Employment (ANOFM) published yesterday. Compared to October 2016, the unemployment rate recorded a minimal decrease of 0.01 percentage points. Romania’s territorial employment agencies had in their database over 416,600 unemployed, and about a sixth of them (87,000) received unemployment benefits at the end of November. Almost 294,000 of the total number of unemployed were living in cities whereas almost 122,000 were from rural areas. Most of the unemployed were aged 40-49 (over 115,300 people). The unemployed without studies and those without primary education accounted for the largest share of the unemployed (over 79%). People with high school degrees represented about 16% whereas those with university degrees were only 4.24% of the total. The unemployment rate announced by ANOFM is different than the one calculated by the National Statistics Institute (INS). According to INS, the estimated number of jobless people in Romania was 521,000 in November 2016, and represented 5.7% of the active population (15-74). editor@romania-insider.com