Ukraine’s rampant unemployment – at 21.1%, now at its highest level since 2010 – has seen the country enter the Top 10 countries with the highest unemployment rates, Ukrainian Slovo i Dilo reported on Oct. 12 citing 2022 data from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
Surprisingly, the number is considered somewhat positive, as the expectation was that up to 26% of the Ukrainian population was unemployed.
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The NBU expects the unemployment rate to fall to 19% by the end of the year (2023).
“The main contributing factor will be the recovery of economic activity. However, the unemployment rate will remain higher than before the full-scale invasion due to significant disparities in the labor market. This can be explained by the uneven economic recovery across sectors and regions due to the impact of the war.”
South Africa tops the list with an official unemployment rate of 32.6%.
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Other African countries with high unemployment rates are Angola (29.6%), Djibouti (27.9%), Botswana (25.4%), Eswatini (24.4%), the Republic of Congo (21.8%), and Gabon (21.5%).
Two Middle Eastern countries, Palestine (24.7%) and Jordan (22.3%), are also in the Top 10 list.
Ukraine ranks tenth with a 21.1% unemployment rate.
Neighboring Poland has an official unemployment rate of 5%, Hungary 4.1%, Germany 5.7%, France 7.2%, Italy 7.3%, the United Kingdom 4.3% and Russia 3%.
Outside of Ukraine, Montenegro has the highest unemployment rate in Europe at 16.2%.
In the United States, the unemployment rate is 3.8%, in China 5.2%, in Japan 2.7%, and in Canada 5.5%.
The lowest unemployment rate is recorded in Qatar at just 0.1%.
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The Top 10 countries with the lowest unemployment rates also include Cambodia (0.4%), Niger (0.5%), Burundi (1%), Thailand (1.1%), Liechtenstein (1.3%), Chad (1.4%), Benin (1.7%), Singapore (1.9%), and Switzerland (2%).
The International Labor Organization reports that there are more than 200 million unemployed people worldwide.
One in seven Ukrainians will still be unemployed in 2025, the NBU forecasts.
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