The unemployment rate is rising for the first time in a year and a half, reaching 15.1% in the first quarter of 2020.
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the number of unemployed was estimated at 623,900 people at the end of the 4th quarter 2019, i.e. an unemployment rate of 14.9%.
For the first quarter of 2020, their number was estimated by the INS at 634.8 thousand of the total working population, against 623.9 thousand for the fourth quarter of 2019.
The unemployment rate recorded for the first quarter is 15.1%, up compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.
By gender, the unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2020 is estimated at 12.3% for men and 22.0% for women.
Between the end of December 2019 and the end of March 2020, which corresponds to the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, the number of unemployed people rose by 0.2%.
This increase, which could be called the COVID-19 effect unemployment, is expected to rise, with April and May 2020 being the periods when lockdown has virtually halted all economic activity.
The active population in Tunisia was 4,200.3 thousand in the first quarter of 2020 against 4,190.3 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2019, an increase of about 10.0 thousand.
This population is divided into 2981.2 thousand men and 1219.0 thousand women, which represents respectively 71.0% and 29.0% of the active population, against 3.543.600 at the end of the 3rd quarter of 2019.
The number of the employed stood at 3565.5 thousand in the first quarter of 2020, against 3566.4 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2019, that is to say a decrease of 0.9 thousand.
This population is divided into 2615.2 thousand men and 950.3 thousand women, which represents 73.3% and 26.7% of the employed population, respectively.
