Economist says Q2 unemployment rates unrealistic

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The unemployment rate dropped in Serbia in the second quarter of the year because fewer people were seeking employment, the Fiscal Council’s chief economist Danko Brcerevic told the Beta news agency on Tuesday.

“Overall trends on the labor market in Q2 were unfavorable which was to be expected,” he said   According to Finance Minister Sinisa Mali, the unemployment rate in Q2 2020 was “at a historic minimum of 7.3 percent”. Unemployment figures for Q2 2020 were released earlier in the day by the Republic Statistics Office.  

Brcerevic said that unemployment actually rose by more than 70,000 or 2.5 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. “The unemployment rate is not relevant at this time and the cat that it was at a historic minimum of 7.3 percent in the second quarter does not mean much,” he said and added that official statistics list only people actively seeking employment as unemployed.

“Some 150,000 fewer people sought employment in Q2 during the state of emergency which is why the unemployment rate dropped,” he said and added that no one should be bragging about the low unemployment rate.

The chief economist said that he expects the drop in employment rates to stabilize at 30-50,000 as predicted at the start of the pandemic.