Lasha Kavtaradze, an economist at Galt & Taggart, explained the 2025 labor market indicators on "Business Morning".
According to Kavtaradze, both employment and unemployment decreased in 2025, leading to an overall decline in the labor force.
"The fourth-quarter data has been published, showing that the unemployment rate decreased by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year, standing at 13.3%. In fact, the fourth quarter saw the same figure as the third quarter, while the average annual unemployment rate for 2025 remained at 13.9%. For Georgia, this is a historically low level; however, by international standards, it remains high and continues to be a significant challenge. If we focus on the annual figures, it is interesting to note that the labor force decreased by approximately 15,800 people, or 1%. To put this in perspective, Georgia’s labor force totals 1.6 million, of which approximately 1.4 million are employed and 224,000 are unemployed.
In 2025, compared to the previous year, employment, unemployment, and the total labor force all decreased. The decline in employment is mainly linked to a reduction in self-employment, which fell by 3.4%, while the number of hired employees grew slightly by 0.1%. At the same time, the number of unemployed persons decreased from 227,000 in 2024 to 224,000. As a result, the unemployment rate relative to the labor force was 13.9%, remaining unchanged compared to 2024.
Interestingly, since the labor force, the number of employed, and the number of unemployed all decreased, one might ask: where did these people go? They likely emigrated. Another important detail in labor force statistics is the labor force participation rate. This figure also decreased slightly by 0.3 percentage points, dropping to 54.5%. This indicates that some of these individuals may have moved into the inactive category—meaning the population outside the labor force," says Kavtaradze.
According to Geostat, the employment rate decreased in the 4th quarter of 2025. For example, while 1,412,503 people were considered employed in the 4th quarter of 2024, their number decreased to 1,402,134 in the 4th quarter of 2025.
There is a decline among both the self-employed and hired employees. In the 4th quarter of 2025, approximately 970,000 people were considered hired employees, whereas in the same period of 2024, there were 978,000. The number of self-employed in the 4th quarter was 430,000, about 3,000 fewer than the corresponding figure for 2024.
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the number of unemployed persons decreased in the 4th quarter of 2025, falling from approximately 234,000 in 2024 to 215,000 in 2025, resulting in an unemployment rate of 13.3% relative to the labor force.
