Actual unemployment figure higher than official

NEWS 10.06.202020:55
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A Serbian NGO warned on Wednesday that actual unemployment figures for the first quarter of 2020 are much higher than official statistics.

Center for Democracy Foundation spokeswoman Sarita Bradas said that the real number of people lost their jobs in the first three months of this year is 60,800 and not 3,800 as the Republic Statistics Office (RZS) reported.  

Bradas said that the employment figure for Q4 of 2019 was 2,938,200 and 2,877,400 in Q1 of 2020. She said that the difference could have been caused by the fact that a large number of people who lost their jobs during the state of emergency declared because of the coronavirus pandemic on March 15 did not search for new jobs and were not registered as unemployed. “Those people are not included in official unemployment figures if they did not actively search for a new job for four weeks,” Bradas said.