Unemployment

Bulgaria is among the eight countries of the European Union in which people live with a considerably higher risk of poverty compared to the bloc's richer members, EU statistics suggest., quoted by BNR.

Romania, Latvia and Lithuania are the riskiest among the eight countries, and Bulgaria ranks fifth in the chart.

The National Statistical Institute reports that in 2016 the unemployed in Bulgaria were by 19 percent fewer, but at the same time the share of economically active people shrank by 0.6 percent on 2015, quoted by BNR.

The total number of the employed was 3.016M or 49.3 percent of the population aged 15+. The employment coefficient in men stood at 66.7 percent and in women at 60%.

Turkey's unemployment rate hit 12.7 percent in December 2016, the highest since March 2010, while youth unemployment stood at 24 percent, official data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) showed on March 15. 

Serbia may have a shortage of 80,000 to 100,000 workers after 2040, with fewer people of working age and due to emigration and reduced population growth.

Economist Ivan Nikolic said this during the presentation of the latest issue of the Macroeconomic Analysis and Trends (MAT) publication, Beta is reporting.

In Greece's grinding economic crisis, a home for abused children is now taking in those whose parents are struggling to feed them.

It is perhaps the darkest sign of economic devastation in Greece, where traditionally strong family ties are starting to crumble after years of depression.

More than half of private sector employees in Greece are paid less than 800 euros per month, compared with just 11 percent in the public sector, while the real unemployment rate is more than 30 percent, the country's biggest union claimed in its annual report published on Monday.

After two straight quarters of growth Greece's economy contracted from October to December, marking the worst quarterly performance since the height of the country's debt crisis in the summer of 2015.

Women, especially young women, have been hit particularly hard by Greece's economic crisis, Labor and Social Insurance Minister Effie Achtsioglou told the Parliament in Athens on Wednesday on the occasion of International Women's Day.

Violence is by far the biggest problem people think women face in Turkish society, although this number has fallen compared to the previous two years, according to a new poll.

The negative result of the revised economic figures for 2016, which pointed to a 0.05 percent yearly contraction on Monday, was the outcome of the decline in investments that offset the rise in consumption, along with the net negative impact of the external trade. That contraction will also have an adverse effect on 2017, too, which is already showing worrying signs.