According to Statistics Estonia, in the second quarter of 2021, the gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 12.9% year on year. The GDP at current prices was 7.4 billion euros.
According to Statistics Estonia, in 2021, the biggest increase compared to the previous year occurred in people’s use of the internet for participating in online courses. The popularity of e-commerce also grew, with 62% of the population aged 16–74 having made online purchases. Among enterprises, the use of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software continues to increase. Enterprises are also trying out AI technologies.
Today, on 6 July a meeting was held between Statistics Estonia and respondents where the main topics were the importance of data collected for producing official statistics, steps taken to reduce the administrative burden of enterprises, and penalty payments.
According to Statistics Estonia, the number of students in general education has decreased by nearly 20,000 during the past five years. While the number of students in the first grade will increase in the coming years, the number of students in secondary education will decrease.
It is estimated that 17% of the native Estonian-speaking population speak a dialect. This is 2 percentage points more than in the previous census. The share of dialect speakers has increased the most in Hiiu and Saare counties, but it has not decreased in any county. 10% of dialect speakers speak more than one dialect.
Census data show that an estimated 76% of Estonia’s population speak a foreign language. While 10 years ago the most widely spoken foreign language in Estonia was Russian, today it is English. Estonian is spoken by 84% of the population: 67% speak it as a mother tongue and 17% as a foreign language.
According to Statistics Estonia, in 2009 the average income of population decreased and the unemployment increased due to the economic crisis, but increased pensions and governmental benefits helped people to prevent the fall in poverty.
According to the preliminary data of Statistics Estonia, in 2020, the Estonian general government deficit was 4.8% and the gross debt level was 18% of the gross domestic product. At the end of 2020, the general government consolidated expenditures exceeded the revenues by 1.3 billion euros.
According to Statistics Estonia, the average monthly gross wages and salaries were 1,065 euros and the average hourly gross wages and salaries were 6.51 euros. Compared to 2014, the average monthly and hourly gross wages and salaries increased by 6.0%. The monthly gross wages and salaries were highest in the 4th quarter.
According to Statistics Estonia, on 1 January 2018, there were 718,600 dwellings in Estonia, of which nearly 76%, or 542,500, were occupied. Of these, 99.1% were conventional dwellings and other housing units, and 0.9% were collective living quarters.