Rising unemployment rate shakes Armenia

/By AzerNews/

By Laman Sadigova

As many as 76,700 people have been officially registered as unemployed at the regional employment centers in Armenia in 2015, showing an increase by 16.4 percent over the previous year.

Artak Mangasaryan, head of the State Employment Service, confirmed the statistics.

The agency reported that the number of job seekers increased by 22.6 percent to 89.000 people as December 2015 compared to 2014. "So, 76.000 of them were people holding official jobless status," the agency stressed.

Earlier, in 2014, Mangasaryan said "Our data suggests that the number of job seekers has increased dramatically since the early 2014 and is around 72,600 as of this January. Nearly 91.4 percent of the overall job hunters are unemployed."

The rising tendency of unemployment among Armenia’s 2.9 million-population has become a pandemic problem which threatens to generate social dysfunction in society.

Mangasaryan said that the country needs labor force badly, but a disastrous emigration wave out of Armenia has decimated the county's workforce, leaving the country in a very difficult position.

Earlier, Armenian population had an opportunity to “run” abroad to find a job and to help those jobless relatives, left in this poor post-Soviet country. However, now they are deprived even of this tiny opportunity to survive. One-third of the Armenian population lives below the poverty line and does not have the ability to make ends meet.

Poverty is the most painful problem of Armenia as its population is recognized as one of the poorest one in the world.

The current economic situation affects Armenia even stronger that it is supposed to be, because this South Caucasus country has no scenario, plan or resources to stay afloat. During the last three years, Armenia saw a price inflation of over 50 percent, while the average salary is $100 on the background of economic growth pace at zero.

Armenia’s ailing economy was not the only reason pushing many citizens to leave their country. Receiving 69.9 percent of money transfers from the Northern giant, Armenia felt the worst impact of Russia’s downing economy.

After the crisis, caused by the Western sanctions, hit Russia, Armenia left without its “safety belt” and the panic covered the country.