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People sometimes need extra support to better cope with difficulties related to job loss, unexpected illness, or reaching retirement age. Social protection helps the underprivileged and more vulnerable members of society to cope, through public and private financial assistance and support services related to job search, health care and daily living. The state organises social protection through social insurance and social welfare. Social insurance provides a person at least a minimum income in the event of loss of employment, illness, birth of a child, incapacity for work and old age. Social
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In Estonia, the general government sector comprises three sub-sectors: central government, local governments, and social security funds. The central government sub-sector includes state budget units, foundations, and legal entities governed by public law. The local government sub-sector includes city and rural municipality governments with their subsidiary units, and foundations. Social security funds include the Estonian Health Insurance Fund and the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund. Pauline Kommer, the Government Finance Service Manager at Statistics Estonia, said that all three sub
The unemployment rate was 6.6% in the second quarter
Date 14.08.2026
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Tea Vassiljeva, leading analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that the decline in unemployment is a sign that the economy is improving. “However, there are no grounds for optimism yet, as there has been no rise in employment and the share of economically inactive people among the working-age population is substantial,” added Vassiljeva. In the second quarter, the number of employed persons was 691,600 – this is 5,700 fewer than a year earlier but 5,300 more than in the first quarter. The employment rate was 68.6%, which is slightly lower than last year and just 0.6 percentage points higher than
Number of unemployed persons down in third quarter
Date 14.11.2025
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“In the third quarter, overall labour market indicators improved compared with both the third quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year,” stated Tea Vassiljeva, analyst at Statistics Estonia. She added that there were a total of 54,200 unemployed persons in the third quarter, which is 5,000 fewer than in the second quarter and 2,100 fewer than in the third quarter of last year. The unemployment rate (7.1%), i.e. the share of the unemployed in the labour force, was 0.3 percentage points lower in the third quarter than in the same quarter last year (7.4%) and 0.7 percentage points
The unemployment rate was 7.5% last year
Date 16.02.2026
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Tea Vassiljeva, analyst at Statistics Estonia, explained that the unemployment rate, i.e. the share of the unemployed in the labour force, was 7.5% last year, which is just 0.1 percentage points lower than in 2024. In 2025, the average number of the unemployed was 56,200 – this is down by 900 from the year before. Unemployment grew the most among young men “Unemployment decreased among women but increased among men. Women’s unemployment rate, which was 7.5% in 2024, dropped to 6.6% in 2025. As for men, their unemployment rate grew by 0.7 percentage points compared with 2024 and reached 8.3% as
The unemployment rate was 7.1% in the first quarter
Date 15.05.2026
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Tea Vassiljeva, analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that, in the first quarter, the labour market showed no signs of major changes in any direction. “There were 52,200 unemployed people in the first quarter, up by 5,100 from the fourth quarter of last year. This number is still significantly lower than in the first quarter of last year, when the number of unemployed people was very high,” noted Vassiljeva. The unemployment rate is the share of the unemployed in the labour force. The unemployment rate was 7.1% in the first quarter, which is 0.7 percentage points higher than in the last quarter
Number of unemployed persons down by 5,000 from first quarter
Date 15.08.2025
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“Compared with the first quarter, labour market indicators have improved, but remain below the figures for the second quarter of 2024,” said Tea Vassiljeva, analyst at Statistics Estonia. The analyst noted that while the unemployment rate in the second quarter (7.8%) was slightly higher than in last year’s second quarter (7.6%), it was 0.8 percentage points lower than in the first quarter of 2025. “The unemployment rate for men (8.4%) was higher than that for women (7.2%). There were a total of 59,200 unemployed persons in the second quarter, which is 5,000 fewer than in the previous quarter