May 15 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.0% in the first quarter of 2019 from 5.7% in the comparable period of last year, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on Wednesday.
Youth unemployment (age bracket 15-29 years), eased to 7.8% in the period under review from 8.2% in the first quarter of last year, NSI said in a quarterly labour force survey.
Long-term unemployment, or people who have been without a job for more than a year, was 2.6%, or 87,500 people.
The employment rate among people aged 15 to 64 rose by 1.8 percentage points year-on-year to 68.3%.
The share of economically active people aged 15-64 grew by 1.3 pp to 71.9%.
There were 1.2 million economically inactive persons aged 15-64 in the first quarter, or 28.1% of the population in this age group. Of them 63,600, or 5.0%, were discouraged persons.