March 15 (SeeNews) - Romania's unemployment rate increased to 5.8% in the fourth quarter of 2023 from 5.4% in the third quarter, the country's statistical office, INS, said on Friday.
Out of a workforce of 8.2 million people, the number of registered unemployed was 475,500 at the end of December, INS said in a statement.
The unemployment rate among men was 6.4% in the fourth quarter, against 5% among women. The jobless rate was 3% in urban areas, compared to 9.2% in rural areas.
The employment rate of the population aged 20-64 years was 68.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023, 9.3 percentage points down from the European Commission's headline target of 78% employment in EU member states by 2030.
Romania's workforce is estimated at about 8.2 million out of a population of some 19.1 million.