In the fourth quarter of 2012 417.3 thousand people were unemployed in Bulgaria in comparison with the fourth quarter of 2011 their number rose by 8.6%. Of all unemployed 237.8 thousand were men and 179.5 thousand were women. The unemployment rate increased by 1.0 percentage point and in the fourth quarter of 2012 was 12.4%. The rate went up by 0.5 percentage points for men and by 1.4 percentage points for women, reaching 13.2% and 11.4% respectively. 
Bulgaria's number of long-term unemployed  was 230.1 thousand, which was 55.1% of all unemployed and compared to the fourth quarter of 2011 the number rose by 7.5%. The long term unemployment rate went up by 0.4 percentage points and reached 6.8% in the fourth quarter of 2012. This rate increased by 0.2 percentage points for men and by 0.7 percentage points for women, achieving 7.7% for men and 5.8% for women.
In the fourth quarter of 2012, previous employment experience had 347.7 thousand (83.3%) of all unemployed persons and 69.6 thousand (16.7%) were looking for their first job. The unemployment rate for the population aged 15 - 29 was 20.7% (21.3% for men and 20.0% for women) and in comparison with the fourth quarter of 2011 it rose by 0.7 percentage points as the increase was higher for women (by 1.5 percentage points) than for men (by 0.2 percentage points)..0 percentage point to 12.4% reports the Bulgarian statistics institute.