Over the year employment rate grew by 0.3 percentage points and the number of employed persons reduced by 2.0 thousand. The greatest decline in the number of employed persons was registered in wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles; public administration and defense; compulsory social security as well as manufacturing.
In Q4 2023, 877.7 thousand people aged 15–74 were employed in Latvia, which is 13.2 thousand fewer than in Q3 2023. The employment rate was 64.0 %, which is 0.7 percentage points lower than in Q3 2023.
In 2023 there were 5.7 thousand employed persons in the age group 75–89 (6.3 thousand in Q4 2023). The statistics in this news release covers people aged 15–74 (incl.).
In Q4 2023 the employment rate among men was 5.0 percentage points higher than among women (66.6 % and 61.6 %, respectively).
Irrespective of the fact that Latvian employment rate has been above the EU average for the past 11 years (61.6 % in Q3 2023), in Q4 2023 it was the lowest among the Baltic countries (69.1 % in Estonia and 65.7 % in Lithuania).
In 2023 employed persons worked on average 38.1 hours per week in the main job, which is 0.3 hours fewer than in 2022. In Q4 2023 employed worked on average 38.0 hours per week, which is 0.6 hours fewer than in Q3 2023.
In Q4 2023, 10.3 % of employees (77.6 thousand) worked remotely. The number is 10.1 thousand people or 1.0 percentage points smaller than a year ago (87.7 thousand or 11.3 %) and 9.3 thousand people or 1.0 percentage points smaller than in the previous quarter (86.9 thousand or 11.3 %). Women accounted for 58.4 % and men for 41.6 % of those working remotely.
The full data description is found on the CSB website.
