The country’s official unemployment rate rose from 12.4 percent in 2023 to 13.3 percent in 2024, according to the Armenian government’s latest figure released by the Statistical Committee last week. The government had pledged to reduce it to below 10 percent by 2026.
Unemployment was particularly high among young Armenians aged under 30. More than 21 percent of them were jobless, the official figures show.
The high jobless rates contrast with a continued rise in the number of officially registered jobs. Pashinian said recently that it reached a new record high of 810,074 in October 2025. Analysts believe that this is first and foremost a result of the government crackdown on tax evasion and, in particular, businesses underreporting the number of their workers.
The Armenian economy has grown robustly since 2022 on the back of positive knock-on effects of Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. Armenian entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the sanctions by re-exporting many Western-manufactured goods to Russia and also helping Russia ship its gold and diamonds to world markets.
Some economists believe that this growth has had a limited socioeconomic impact because it has mainly benefited a narrow circle of individuals and businesses. This might explain why it has not translated into a significant drop in poverty. The Statistical Committee reported in November 2025 that about 22 percent of Armenians live below the official poverty line, down from 26.4 percent in 2021 when Pashinian’s government pledged to cut the rate by half over the next five years.
In late October, Pashinian blamed Armenia’s former governments for his administration’s failure to fulfill that pledge, saying that they “destroyed the schools.” Low-income Armenians tend to be poorly educated, he said, adding that many of them are also too lazy to work. According to the Statistical Committee, unemployment among university-educated citizens was only slightly lower than the nationwide average rate.
Macroeconomic data released by the government agency shows that economic growth continued unabated in January-September 2025. It was still mainly driven by construction and especially services other than trade. The services sector was the main source of job vacancies in 2024, with companies primarily looking for sales assistants and other low-paid workers.