Kaja Kallas: High unemployment in Eastern Estonia due to women not working
Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (Reform), in an interview with the regional daily Põhjarannik said that the county's high unemployment rate is due to fewer women working in Ida-Viru County compared to other Estonian counties, following which the daily published a fact check of her statements.
"Unemployment is very high in Ida-Viru County and we know why; after all, very few women go to work here compared to other regions [in Estonia], where everyone is at work," Kallas said in an interview with the daily.
Erik Gamzejev, the editor-in-chief of Põhjarannik, wrote an editorial refuting the prime minister's claims about unemployment in Estonia's easternmost county bordering Russia.
The Unemployment Insurance Fund (Töötukassa) reported 6,734 unemployed in Ida-Viru County in September, with 53 percent women, which is below the Estonian average of 53.5 percent, Gamzejev wrote, while in Harju County, the largest county in Estonia and the largest in terms of unemployed people, women make up 56 percent of the unemployed.
Gamzejev also discussed several other "misleading" statements made by the prime minister – such as denying that the scaling down of shale industry has caused the loss of jobs in the county – citing data from Eesti Energia that attests to the contrary.
The unemployment rate in Ida-Viru County is 12.2 in October, 2023.
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Editor: Kristina Kersa
Source: "Põhjarannik"
