BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 15
By Tamilla Mammadova – Trend:
The National Statistics Service of Georgia (Geostat) will start publishing statistics on unemployment according to the new methodology from the third quarter of 2020, said Gogita Todradze, executive director of the statistics service, Trend reports via Georgian media.
According to this methodology, a rural resident of the country who does not sell more than 50 percent of his harvest will be considered unemployed.
“Until today, any person who cultivated his land, regardless of whether he sold his agricultural products or used them for personal purposes, was considered self-employed. According to the new methodology, those people who are not market-oriented will be excluded from the self-employed category. That is, those that do not sell more than 50 percent of their products. Such people will no longer be considered self-employed,” Todradze said.
The head of the statistics service does not exclude that due to the transition to a new way of calculating the unemployment rate in the country, it could radically increase.
According to Todradze, the new methodology for calculating the unemployment rate is actively used in 20 countries, including Moldova, as well as a number of European countries.
In Georgia, 800,000 people are considered self-employed. This category includes villagers, taxi drivers, nannies, tutors and others. Of the 800,000 people, about 80 percent are rural residents.
In the third quarter of 2019, the country's unemployment rate was 11.1 percent, which is 1.1 percentage points less compared to the same period of 2018.
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