Hungary Jobless Rate Drops to 5.1%

Hungary’s jobless rate dropped by 1.7 percentage points to 4.4% in the October-December period of last year, as compared to the same months a year earlier, the Central Statistical Office said in a first release of data Monday, BBJ reported. The unemployment rate decreased by 1.7% to 5.1% in 2016, as compared to the previous year. In the October-December period, the unemployment ratio of 15–74 year-old unemployed men dropped by 1.5% to 4.4%, while for women it dropped by 2 pp to 4.5%, according to the data. In the period, the average duration of unemployment was 17.9 months; 46.6% of unemployed people had been searching for a job for one year or more (i.e. were long-term unemployed). At the end of 2016, as compared to the previous year, the total number of registered jobseekers had decreased by 19% to 273,000, according to the administrative data of the National Employment Service. In the January-December period, the unemployment rate diminished by 1.7% to 5.1% in the 15-74 year-old age group, as compared to the preceding year.