The female unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.0 % in February, but the male unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 8.1 %.
The unemployment rate registered with the State Employment Agency (NVA) was 6.8 %, 0.1 percentage points lower than in January. Compared to February last year, the actual unemployment rate decreased by 0.5 percentage points and the registered unemployment rate - by 1.4 percentage point.
In February 2022, there were 70.2 thousand unemployed persons (32.3 thousand females and 37.9 thousand males) in Latvia, which is 0.3 thousand fewer than in January, and 4.6 thousand fewer than in the same period last year. The number of unemployed males decreased by 0.1 thousand during the month, while the number of unemployed females - by 0.2 thousand. It should be noted that in mid-February, the country started to relax a number of Covid-19 related measures, potentially reducing the number of unemployed persons.
In 2021, there were 24.4 thousand job vacancies in Latvia, an increase of 4.9 thousand or 25.3 % compared to 2020. There were 15.9 thousand job vacancies in the private sector, whereas 8.6 thousand in the public sector. During the year, the number of job vacancies in the private sector increased by 4.2 thousand or 35.8 %, while in the public sector - by 0.7 thousand or 9.5 %.
The highest vacancy rates were in public administration - 5.9 %, manufacturing - 3.7 %, construction - 3.5 %, administrative and support service activities - 3.0 %, human health and social work activities - 2.9 %, accommodation and food service activities and information and communication - 2.8 %.
