Kazakhstan Reports Lower Unemployment Rate

According to the Bureau of National Statistics, the labor market in Kazakhstan is rebounding and the unemployment rate has descended to 4.9% when compared to 5% over the same period last year.

The agency says that in Q3 this year the country’s workforce accounted for 8.8 million people. About 6.7 million of them are hired employees (76.1% of the total workforce). The number of unemployed people is 4.9% or 450,700 people. It’s slightly less than over the same period last year (454,800 unemployed people or 5.0%).

As far as the economy rebounds, more and more people return to their previous work in the amount they are used to dealing with. For example, in Q3 the number of employees who worked part-time decreased by 5.3% to 242,900 people compared to Q2.

However, 3,600 people are still considered temporarily unemployed because of the pandemic. All of them worked in transportation and warehouses (19.7%), hospitality sector and food industry (15.5%) as well as arts, entertainment and leisure (15.3%).

At the end of October 2021, there were 193,500 officially unemployed people in the country. This is about 2.1% of the entire workforce in Kazakhstan.

Last fall Kazakhstan reported rapid growth of the unemployment rate. Over five consequent months in2021, the country’s unemployment rate was the highest among EEU member states.