The latest issue of Economic Outlook and Indicators in Georgia, analyzes Vocational Education in Georgia (2019 – 2023): State expenditure on VET tripled between 2017 and 2024, with its share in total education spending rising from 3.1% to 4%. From 2017 to 2023, the number of registered students increased; however,  the number of admitted students has not risen correspondingly, leading to a widening gap between registered and admitted students. The transition from secondary school to VET remains challenging, with 10.6 times more students opting for higher education, albeit the number of registered VET students has grown.

Our latest publication analyzes Household Income and Poverty in Georgia (2019 – 2023): From 2019 to 2023, Georgia’s nominal median household income grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11%, while real median household income, adjusted for inflation, increased at a CAGR of 4% annually. During this period, social transfers accounted for an average of 58% of the total income for the poorest 20% of households, highlighting their strong reliance on government assistance. Between 2020 and 2023, absolute poverty significantly decreased from 21.3% to 11.8%, while the relative poverty rate remained relatively stable, dropping by just 0.3 percentage points to 19.8%. The share of households reporting themselves as “poor” or “extremely poor” decreased slightly from 39.7% to 35.4% over the analyzed period, suggesting a persistent gap between subjective and objective measures of poverty.

Our latest publication examines youth employment in Georgia from 2020 to 2023. The successful participation of youth (those aged 15-24) in Georgia’s labor market is vital for the country’s socioeconomic development. It promotes social integration, reduces poverty, and boosts economic productivity. During 2020-2023, the contribution of youth to the Georgian labor market declined, even though during this time the proportion of youth among the total population aged 15 and older remained stable. Decreasing participation of youth in the labor market is driven by both emigration and extended education periods. In 2023, approximately one out of every five young persons in Georgia neither worked nor studied, while only 7% of them managed to work and study simultaneously. Please refer to the full publication for more insights. 

This publication analyzes where Georgia stands in comparison to Moldova and Ukraine, two other countries with candidate status for EU membership, and evaluates how these three countries are performing relative to EU member states across several key indices and rankings to gain a comprehensive understanding of Georgia’s position regarding European integration. The most significant gap between Georgia and the EU average was identified in the area of Democracy, according to the analysis. Today, this concern is heightened as democracy in Georgia is considered to be under threat as the Parliament of Georgia has passed a law on the transparency of foreign influence.

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.