Georgia is considered a country of emigration. Since the mid-1990s, emigration from the country has been largely defined as labor migration, with Georgian citizens seeking better prospects abroad to ease persistent socio-economic challenges at home, including high unemployment, widespread poverty, and low wages.  A distinctive feature of this trend is that a significant proportion of Georgian labor emigrants choose to reside and work illegally in their host countries. Meanwhile, for Georgians who opt to emigrate, their primary motivation for doing so is to earn enough to support their families back in Georgia to whom they send remittances to alleviate economic hardships. This bulletin discusses Georgia’s emigration trends and the role of remittances in the Georgian economy at macro and micro levels over the last decade.

This bulletin provides a comprehensive understanding of household income distribution in Georgia. It presents an analysis of income inequality beyond the traditional Gini coefficient by examining additional dimensions of income distribution. More precisely, the bulletin compares the income of different segments of society, household income in rural and urban areas, and between regions.  

Notwithstanding the recent positive tendencies, considerable challenges persist in the Georgian labor market. In this bulletin, we address several of these pressing concerns and provide a comprehensive overview of the labor market including: Labor market key indicators The Beveridge curve analysis Employment by economic sectors and employed foreign nationals Salaries of paid employees Vacancies published on Jobs.ge

Socio-economic problems continue to represent a significant challenge for Georgia. Specifically, in 2021, 17.5% of the Georgian population fell under the absolute poverty line. By and large, different states typically offer various forms of social assistance (including subsistence allowance) to help the most vulnerable within society. In Georgia, the subsistence allowance program provides financial aid to the country’s poorest families, whose rating score is less than 120,001. The rating score is determined by the social services agency and reflects the family’s income and assets. The lower the score, the poorer the family. However, recent studies have indicated that this program does not help beneficiaries to get out of poverty and that it instead encourages them to maintain a low income to remain eligible to receive the allowance. To address such issues, starting from March 2022, the Georgian government implemented a wide-scale public works employment program for the country’s socially vulnerable citizens. It should be noted that the persons involved in the program will maintain the status of socially vulnerable for 4 years. In this newsletter, we take a close look at the dynamics of the population receiving subsistence allowance. Moreover, the trends with respect to the announced working program are also discussed.

In recent years, the number of international students has been increasing worldwide, with their contributions to host countries’ economies growing accordingly, and Georgia is not an exception. As shown in PMC RC’s study, total expenses incurred by foreign students, their foreign relatives, and friends in Georgia in the 2020-2021 academic year exceeded US$132 million. Understanding the dynamics of foreign students and foreign language programs in Georgia is crucial to ensure further growth and investment in the education sector. Therefore, this bulletin overviews the dynamics of foreign students in Georgia and their financial contribution to the country’s education sector.

The successful participation of youth in the Georgian labor market is crucial for not only their own personal wellbeing, but also the prosperity of the country as a whole. Although the broad topic of employment is one of the most discussed issues at the national level in Georgia, the more specific matter of youth employment is afforded relatively little attention. Seeking to address this shortcoming, this bulletin focuses on changes in the Georgian labor market and relevant indicators for the age group of 15-24 in the period of 2017-2021.

International rankings and indicators help us to understand and assess how countries are performing in different areas. In this bulletin, Georgia’s positions in international rankings and the dynamics therein are reviewed based on the latest data. Georgia’s positions will also be compared with other Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus).

Georgia is a country of emigration. Since the mid-1990s, Georgian migration patterns have been characterized as labor emigration driven by socio-economic challenges (high unemployment, poverty, and low salaries). As different studies have indicated, the significant proportion of Georgian labor emigrants reside and work illegally in their host country. The primary motivation for Georgian emigrants is to be able to send money back to their families in Georgia to support them. This bulletin discusses Georgia’s emigration trends and the role of remittances in the Georgian economy on macro and micro levels over the last decade.

Poverty alleviation remains one of the biggest challenges for the world, including Georgia. The COVID-19 crisis has worsen the problem as many households’ income shrank even further due to the crisis. For instance, according to a public opinion poll conducted by NDI in 2021, 37% of respondents indicated that poverty was the main issue they were facing.  Against this background, we take a closer look at poverty in Georgia and discuss trends and changes therein over the last five years.

As Georgia struggles to overcome various social and economic problems, pensions remain among the country’s central issues. For many years, Georgia’s pension system had comprised only a state pension based on a solidarity principle. However, the state pension had not been sufficient to allow retired persons to maintain acceptable living standards. Therefore, pension system reform was a topic of hot discussion for a long time in Georgia and pertinently, in 2018, a funded pension scheme was integrated into the pension system. The following bulletin will review the key changes that have taken place in the pension system over the last five years.