The unemployment rate (under the ILO-definition) moderated further to 5.6% in April after jumping to 6% in January. Investors expected it to drop to 5.5%, according to a Bloomberg survey. The rate was fluctuating around 5.3% throughout H2 2012. To compare, the unemployment rate was reported at 5.8% in April 2012 and 7.2% in April 2011, according to RosStat.
In the beginning of H2/13 employment is going to improve but the positive seasonal effect may be outweighed by slowing activity in all major sectors.
The labour force in April remained almost flat at 75.3mn people. The number of unemployed declined to 4.2mn people. The absolute number of unemployed declined by 4.5% in annual terms and by 2.3% in monthly terms. Official unemployment amounted to 1.1mn people, out of which 0.9mn people received unemployment benefits. As usual, in April the number of unemployed in rural areas was twice as high as the number of unemployed in urban areas. Long-term unemployed (people without a job for a year and more) constituted some 32% of all unemployed, while workers without a job for less than 3 months were 31%.
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