Total unemployed in Russia drops to 6.4 mln persons in Feb
MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax) - The fight against unemployment in Russia is yielding positive results as the number of people without jobs has been decreasing recently, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov said at a meeting of the Government Presidium on Wednesday.
"The overall situation with unemployment is somewhat better this year than last year," Zhukov said.
Zhukov added that the situation still is problematic and work should continue for lowering the unemployment rate in the country.
Zhukov said that that the number of unemployed increased between October 2009 and January 2010 from 5.8 million to 6.8 million people, almost by one million.
In February 2010, the number of unemployed in Russia dropped by 400,000 persons. "According to February's results we had 6.4 million in total unemployed, or 8.6% of the economically active population," Zhukov said.
"We have observed a decrease in the number of unemployed in the last three weeks," Zhukov said.