ArmInfo. The income of an ordinary citizen of Armenia in 5 years will grow by at least 30-35%. Armenian Minister of Economic Development and Investments Tigran Khachatryan told reporters on February 8 after the sitting of the Cabinet.
According to the Minister, currently the number of people employed in the private sector, according to preliminary estimates, is 350 thousand people. "If we are talking about an y-o-y GDP growth of at least 5%, this means that if labor productivity in the economy does not increase, then this growth will provide for 17- 18 thousand people a year," explained Khachatryan. For those who consider this growth insufficient to reduce the overall unemployment rate, the Minister assured that the government will try to provide more people with jobs.
According to the latest official statistics, the poverty level in Armenia in 2015 was 29.8%, which is 0.2% less than in 2014. The total number of poor people in Armenia was 900 thousand people, 310 thousand of which are very poor, and extremely poor - 60 thousand people. In 2015, about 19.4% of the populations were listed as poor, 8.4% were very poor and 2% were extremely poor.
At the same time, according to statistical data, in 2016 the unemployment rate in Armenia was 18%, against 18.5% - 2015. The results of the Q1 of 2018 on the unemployment rate in Armenia were published by the Statistical Committee in July, indicating the data calculated both by the old method and by the new one: by the old - 17.6% (against 19% in the first quarter of 2017); on the new - 20.6% (against 21.8% in the Q1 of 2017), with 19.8% of women unemployed and 21.2% of men. Unemployment in Armenia, calculated by the new method, which does not take into account those employed in the household, at the end of June 2018 was 20.6%, having decreased by 1.2% in ay-o-y terms. According to the forecasts of the World Bank, the unemployment rate in Armenia in 2018 will be 18.1%. The World Bank predicts that the poverty level (with a purchasing power parity (PPP) of $ 5.5) may reach 38.2% in 2018, with a decline to 36.8% in 2019, while the PPP calculation of $ 3.2 may reduce the poverty level to 2018-2019 from 10.1% to 9.1%.