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Robert Müürsepp, the national accounts team lead at Statistics Estonia, said that the GDP, which had shown growth in the fourth quarter last year, was again down a little in the first quarter this year. “A month ago, we published a model-based flash estimate which suggested that the economy might be slightly improving. However, the flash estimate underestimated some irregular factors in the fourth quarter. Vehicle sales were exceptionally high in the fourth quarter in anticipation of the introduction of the motor vehicle tax from 2025. But the model could not fully foresee the significant

Tea Vassiljeva, analyst at Statistics Estonia, explained that there were 64,200 unemployed persons in the first quarter of 2025, which is the highest value of this indicator in the last 12 years. “The number of the unemployed increased by 5,300 compared with the same quarter of last year. The unemployment rate rose to 8.6%, which is 0.8 percentage points more than a year earlier and 1.2 percentage points more than in the fourth quarter of last year,” noted Vassiljeva. The unemployment rate was 9% for men and 8.2% for women. “Ida-Viru county was the only region where the unemployment rate

According to Statistics Estonia, in the second quarter of 2024, the unemployment rate was 7.6%, the employment rate was 69.7%, and the labour force participation rate was 75.4%.

According to Statistics Estonia, in 2023, the average expenditure of Estonian residents on overnight outbound trips was greater than in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic. The average spending on outbound trips has increased by 43% in the years 2018–2023. The number of tourists accommodated in Estonia has not yet reached the pre-pandemic level, but the share of domestic tourists has increased significantly compared with 2018.

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. Pauline Kommer, team lead of government finance statistics at Statistics Estonia, said that both the central government and local governments ended 2024 in deficit. “The deficit was 553.9 million euros for the central

Robert Müürsepp, team lead of national accounts at Statistics Estonia, noted that the economy, which has been falling for ten quarters in a row, is showing signs of improvement, but the biggest changes are still on the negative side. “Among the activities, construction had a strong negative impact on the economy, as did manufacturing. The biggest positive contributor after two years was again information and communication, where value added grew by 7.3%,” Müürsepp stated. Real estate activities and agriculture, forestry and fishing also made larger positive contributions to the economy. The

Robert Müürsepp, the national accounts team lead at Statistics Estonia, said that the fourth quarter marked the end of 10 quarters of recession. “The last time the GDP grew was in the first quarter of 2022,” Müürsepp noted. In contrast to previous quarters, the majority of activities had a positive impact on the economy. “The energy sector led the way, with value added increasing by 21%. This was followed by real estate activities and information and communication – both saw their value added rise by 5.7%. Notably, manufacturing also recovered from the crisis, growing by 0.5%. The value added

“In 1994, the life expectancy of Estonian residents was 66.5 years, whereas by 2024 it had increased by 13 years and reached 79.5 years. In both Latvia and Lithuania, life expectancy has increased by about nine years in the same 30-year period. Life expectancy is currently 77.6 years in Lithuania and 75.6 years in Latvia,” explained Eveli Voolens, the social statistics team lead at Statistics Estonia. She added that Latvia has one of the lowest life expectancies in Europe. On the other hand, in Finland, life expectancy was already 76.7 years in 1994 and has now increased by 4.9 years to 81.6

Kaia Oras, a leading expert at Statistics Estonia, explained that the growth in demand for environmental goods and services has been due to both increased awareness of environmental problems as well as higher environmental and energy saving requirements, especially in construction. “The rapid growth in energy-efficient new construction and reconstruction of buildings has a huge impact. Together, these generated €1.5 billion in output,” Oras added. Among the energy produced from renewables, electricity and heat production from renewable energy sources accounted for €482.2 million and the