the Minister of Finance of Georgia, Nodar Khaduri, stated that the number of employed people in Georgia increased by 30,000 after the new government assumed office. Specifically, the number of people employed in the business sector has increased.
Nodar Khaduri is not the only one from the Cabinet who has elaborated upon the issue of employment lately. We remind you that FactCheck has already checkedthe accuracy of the Prime Minister’s statement about the employment in the business sector and production output. In order to verify the accuracy of Nodar Khaduri’s statement we analysed both the overall as well as the business sector employment figures of the past several years. As of yet, the National Statistics Office of Georgia has only published the overall employment figures of 2013 and the quarterly employment figures in the business sector including those of 2014.
According to these statistics, a total of 1,712 thousand people were employed in 2013 which was 11.9 thousand less than in 2012. Despite the fact that the number of employed people decreased by 11.9 thousand in 2013 the statistics of unemployment improved and dropped from 15% to 14.6%. This was mainly due to a decrease in the workforce in 2013 going down by 25.2 thousand (unemployment is calculated with regard to work force in %).
Table 1:
Annual Figures of Employment and Unemployment
| 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | |
| Economically Active Population (Workforce), Thousand People | 2,024 | 2,022 | 1,965 | 1,918 | 1,992 | 1,945 | 1,959 | 2,029 | 2,004 |
| Employed, Thousand People | 1,745 | 1,747 | 1,704 | 1,602 | 1,656 | 1,628 | 1,664 | 1,724 | 1,712 |
| Unemployed, Thousand People | 279.3 | 274.5 | 261 | 315.8 | 335.6 | 316.9 | 295.1 | 305.1 | 291.8 |
| Unemployment Rate, % | 13.8 | 13.6 | 13.3 | 16.5 | 16.9 | 16.3 | 15.1 | 15 | 14.6 |
As for the employment in the business sector specifically, according to the National Statistics Office of Georgia, a total of 534,397 people were employed in 2012. This number grew by 16,488 in 2013 and equalled 550,885. The overall employment data of 2014 has not yet been published; however, it is also quite interesting to look at the quarterly data according to which an average of 503,899 people were employed in all four quarters of 2013 and an average of 514,623 in 2014. Hence, according to these data, employment was up by 11,000.
Graph 1:
Number of People Employed in the Business Sector (Annual Data)
Conclusion
The above statistics illustrate that the overall number of employed people decreased in 2013. However, the workforce decreased as well which, consequently, caused the unemployment figures to drop. As for the number of people employed in the business sector, it increased in 2013 and 2014 and amounted to 27.5 thousand.
Hence, FactCheck concludes that Nodar Khaduri’s statement is MOSTLY TRUE.
