Unemployment rate in Armenia approaches 20pct
By Rashid Shirinov
Unemployment remains one of the main problems of Armenian society for many years. Although the trend keeps growing, the Armenian government still fails to fight the problem.
Armenia’s National Statistical Service has recently revealed that the unemployment rate in Armenia in the first quarter of 2017 amounted to 19 percent.
Thus, the figure increased compared to the same period of last year, when the figure was 18.3 percent.
Today, 228,400 of 1,202,900 economically active people of Armenia are unemployed. Having a direct link with widespread poverty, unemployment mostly affects the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the Armenian society.
The unemployment rate in Armenia is still the highest among the CIS countries, and due to the wrong structure of national economy, new vacancies do not seem to come up soon.
Unofficial Armenian sources note that every third citizen of Armenia lives in poverty. This is also one of the main reasons of emigration of Armenian youth – they cannot find appropriate jobs in their homeland. That’s why more and more people head abroad, mostly to Russia, to find money for themselves and for their parents, who, in most cases, stay in Armenia.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people, who financially cannot afford to leave the country, join rallies in Yerevan and other regions of Armenia to protest against current government and finally to get a job to feed their families. However, all the government can offer the dissatisfied unemployed is false promises.
But, the life of those who managed to get a job in Armenia also leaves much to be desired. Many of employees are suffering from delay in salaries, non-payment of salaries for the holiday period and unlawful dismissal.
If the Armenian government wants to revive its poor economy, it should first create enough opportunity for Armenians to work – to open new vacancies. However, years pass and thousands of unemployed Armenian citizens have forced to beg for job, because their government apparently doesn’t take care of them.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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