BELGRADE - Serbia's unemployment rate reached 23.7 percent at the end of November 2011, an increase compared with 22.2 percent recorded at the end of April last year, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia said in a release Monday.
The unemployment rate, which represents the share of the unemployed in the total and economically active population, was 22.8 percent for male and 24.9 percent for the female population.
The unemployment rate in the Belgrade region was 20.8 percent and 24.2 percent in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. In Sumadija (central Serbia) and western Serbia, the unemployment rate was 23.2 percent, while in the regions of southern and eastern Serbia it was 26.6 percent.
The employment rate is the percentage of employees in the total of the population aged 15 years and older, and it amounted to 35.3 percent in November 2011. Of these, the employment rate for men was 43.1 percent and 28.2 percent for women.
The highest employment rate was recorded in Sumadija and western Serbia, amounting to 37.7 percent, followed by the rate in the Vojvodina region, 35.1 percent. Placed last on the employment rate list, the Belgrade region and southern and eastern Serbia had an equal rate of 34 percent.