Everybody knows that in Armenia the saying economic growth is a formal index. It means that the numbers are growing but due to the extreme polarization of revenues the most influential stratum feels the favorable impact of that.
Nevertheless, when the economic indices of the first months of the current year have started to improve, vague hopes popped out that the economy would abide certain growth. The observation of certain indices inspires some hope – the taxes grew, foreign trade circulation increased, etc. It seems that everything proceeds in an interlinked manner. However, in the background of the integrity of the macroeconomic indices the index of unemployment remained unclear and isolated. In the first four months of this year the economy registered 5.5% growth but the level of unemployment compared to the beginning of the year remained unchanged – 7.3%. And the number of the unemployed fluctuates around 85 thousand people. Yesterday the head of the Employment State Service agency of the Ministry of Labor and Social Issues Sona Harutyunyan formulates this way, “At present in the labor market there is certain relief of tension and stabilization of the unemployment level. As of May 1 in Armenia the level of unemployment compared to the beginning of the year remained unchanged.” Thus, in the labor market the economic growth is reflected at least the way that unemployment didn’t grow. If desire, indeed, it is possible to provide an economic explanation to this phenomenon. For example we can say that for overcoming the crisis we need certain time to wait for the labor market to grow and development. Perhaps in 2-3 months the level of unemployment may also improve and our state officials will start to speak with serious “faces” about this “growth.” However, conducting analyses based on the above-mentioned data is a meaningless and ungrateful occupation because of the simple reason that we have to deal with official indices. It means that the 85 thousand are the people, who not only don’t have jobs but are also looking for one and are registered at the Employment State Service. Each of the readers can do the math in his/her month. For example, they can count the number of friends and relatives, who don’t have jobs and what percentage of them is registered in this labor agency. Very view, isn’t it? Even in the words of the head of the Employment Service Harutyunyan the actual unemployment rates exceed the actual unemployment rates by over three times. In particular, according to the methodological surveys of the International Labor Organization the level of unemployment in Armenia is 27.5%. People do not get registered in this state body despite the fact that the website of this state service encourages citizens to get registered by promising that the people, who are seeking jobs, will be provided by employment consultations, information about announced vacancies, employment projects as well as solicitation for finding jobs. The reason why people don’t get registered in this state body Harutyunyan mentioned a number of circumstances, such as lack of information or distrust that it would be possible to find a job via this website. However, this is not the essential point. Moreover, for the state propaganda the indifference of people to the agency is favorable to a certain extent. Can you imagine what would happen if all the unemployed people of Armenia decide to get registered to this state website. Only few of these unemployed people will be able to find jobs and the official index of unemployment will increase three times. It is more important to understand how come in Armenia, which has had dual-digit economic growth for 10 years, has 27.5% unemployment rate. To the great surprise the explanation to this can be found on the webpage of the Employment Agency. In particular, let us excerpt the following part from the report of the Labor Market Analysis of Armenia, “In the previous decade the high economic rates of Armenia didn’t go in line with the growth of employment. As in many transition states in Armenia as well a growth not providing workplaces was registered or this was even economic growth proceeding in parallel with the reduction of workplaces.” In fact this report implies a strong criticism directed to the ones, who brag about the economic growth of Armenia of the previous years. If we didn’t know who the author is we’d think that this is one of the opposition analysts. Moreover, the next allegation even more rips the mask of the “dual-digit” growth of the past decade. It reads, “Essential changes have taken place in the employment structure of the main branches of the economy. In the industry and construction sectors the number of the employed reduced from 41.6% back from 1990 to 15.4% compared to 2005; the ratio of the employed in the agriculture and forestation sectors grew from 17.7% of 1990 to 41.6% in 2005. It means that during the transition period from the industrial economy to post-industrial we have turned into an agrarian state.” By the way, the fact that the number of the employed in the construction sector has reduced is quite noteworthy. This is noteworthy especially on the background of the construction boost. This once again comes to prove that the so-called construction growth is stipulated by the increase of the price of construction materials, and the meaningless increase of land and real estate. And the saddest thing is that according to the same publication the highest reduction of the unemployed was registered in the science sector. And as the government has been convincing us for years are a science-based economy.