Bulgaria's unemployment rate edged up to 4.7% in December from 4.4% in the previous month as demand for seasonal jobs slowed, data from the state employment agency showed on Monday.

The jobless rate was 4.8% in December 2021, when the Balkan country was slowly recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. There were about 8,500 more unemployed people in the country of 6.5 million than in November. When compared with the year before, there were 3,299 fewer unemployed Bulgarians.

UNEMPLOYMENT DEC 2022 NOV 2022 DEC 2021 RATE Monthly total 153,944 145,431 157,243 Pct of workforce 4.7 4.4 4.8 (Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova)