Latvian unemployment drops to 6.3 pct in 2019
Xinhua
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RIGA, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Latvian unemployment dropped 1.1 percentage points year on year to 6.3 percent in 2019, showed a labor force survey released on Monday by the national statistics office.

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File photo: CGTN

The unemployment rate for women was lower than for men, with 5.4 percent of the female population and 7.2 percent of the male population being out of work last year.

Joblessness among young Latvians rose from 12.2 percent in 2018 to 12.4 percent last year. Young people, aged 15 to 24, accounted for 12.6 percent of Latvia's jobless population in 2019, up 1.6 percentage points year on year.

The share of long-term unemployed people who have been unable to find work for more than a year declined from 41.7 percent in 2018 to 38.2 percent of the entire jobless population in 2019.

The Baltic country's overall employment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points from a year before to 65 percent of the working-age population in 2019, statistics show.

Employment grew at the fastest rate in construction, finance and insurance, public administration and defense, social insurance, agriculture, forestry and fishing.