Editing Economy of Georgia (country) (section)

==Unemployment==

Unemployment has been a persistent problem in Georgia ever since the country gained independence in 1991. According to the [[National Statistics Office (Georgia)|National Statistics Office]], unemployment rate stood at 16.9% in 2013 and it has decreased at 16.4% in 2023.<ref name="geostat">{{cite web |title=geostat.ge |url=https://www.geostat.ge/en/modules/categories/683/Employment-Unemployment |access-date=18 July 2024}}</ref>

Nearly a half of Georgia's population lives in rural areas, where low-intensity [[Subsistence agriculture|self-sufficient]] farming provides the principal source of livelihood.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110409050714/http://operations.ifad.org/web/guest/country/home/tags/georgia Rural poverty in Georgia]</ref> Georgian statistics service puts individual persons into the category of self-employed workers. As of 2007 416,900 persons were listed as self-employed in agriculture.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://georgiandaily.com/repository/Employment%20%2002-07-08.pdf |title=Government press release on unemployment in 2007 |access-date=2008-12-18 |archive-date=2008-12-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081219174318/http://georgiandaily.com/repository/Employment%20%2002-07-08.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> For large families, heads of households are typically described as  "individual entrepreneurs", members of the family that help to cultivate land are classified as "unpaid family business workers". The use of this methodology produces relatively low unemployment rates for rural areas rather in urban areas and in Tbilisi.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.geostat.ge/index.php?action=page&p_id=146&lang=eng|title=GeoStat.Ge|access-date=3 March 2015}}</ref>
Neighbouring countries show somewhat similar results. For example, Armenia in 2015 had 18.26% unemployment rate, which is 532.644 people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.google.am/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:ARM:GEO&hl=en&dl=en|title = World Development Indicators – Google Public Data Explorer}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/440639/unemployment-rate-in-armenia/|title=Armenia – unemployment rate 2020}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!     !! 2014
!2015
!2016
!2017
!2018
!2019
!2020
|-
| Active population (labour force), thousand persons || 1 629
|1 675.6
|1 653.8
|1 641.4
|1 605.2
|1 572.8
|1 523.7
|-
| Employed, thousand persons  || 1 255
|1 308.5
|1 294.5
|1 286.9
|1 296.2
|1 295.9
|1 241.8
|-
| Unemployed, thousand persons || 374
|367.2
|359.2
|354.5
|309.0
|276.9
|281.9
|-
| Unemployment rate, percentage  || 23.0
|21.9
|21.7
|21.6
|19.2
|17.6
|18.5
|}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.geostat.ge/en/modules/categories/683/Employment-Unemployment|title=GeoStat.Ge|access-date=12 May 2021}}</ref>