The unemployment rate in Latvia has recently dropped by 0.4%, going from 12.3% back in May this year, down to 11.9% in June. It has been predicted that this rate could continue to drop to around 10.9% in early 2013. At the beginning of June, there were 121,994 people who were registered as unemployed at the State Employment Agency (SEA), and by the end of the month this had gone down to 117,606. Indicating that the total number of unemployed people actually decreased by nearly 5,000.
It’s been reported that 12,355 people lost their ‘unemployed’ status, and 44.3% of this group lost it because they found a job, most with the help of the SEA. However, 47.7% of the group only lost their status because they failed to comply with the SEA’s requirements – many failed to show up for meetings with their employment agents, or failed to show evidence of job hunting when they did turn up.
On the other hand, with the unemployment rate reducing, the number of available jobs is also dropping. A possible explanation could be the large quantity of seasonal jobs, thousands of students returned home when term ended in May, and it’s likely they have snapped a lot of the jobs up. Many companies will already have employed their summer staff, and there is likely to be a slight lull until autumn, when business will pick up again for the new season.
