Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Uzbekistan’s government has changed the procedure for accounting for employment and unemployment.
The number of employed citizens will now be determined based on data from tax, labor, migration and other state information systems, while unemployed and informally employed people will also be identified through quarterly household visits in mahallas.
Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 522 was signed on 29 September 2026 and entered into force on 30 September. The National Database of Legislation reported this.
The resolution was adopted pursuant to Presidential Resolution No. PP-75 of 24 February 2025 on measures to organize the activities of the National Statistics Committee. It approves a new labor resources balance format, procedures for preparing reporting and forecast balances, a methodology for calculating employment and unemployment, and regulations for compiling a targeted list of unemployed and informally employed people.
The Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the National Statistics Committee, together with other agencies, are required to develop and approve administrative data forms within one month. Agencies will submit the data through the interagency integration platform of the Electronic Government system.
Sources of data
The resolution establishes the source of information for each category of employed people. Data on individual entrepreneurs and their employees, self-employed people and those working in peasant farms will be obtained from the Tax Committee’s database.
Employees of legal entities will be counted using the Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment’s Unified National Labor System hardware and software complex and personal income tax reports.
Only cases where remuneration is at least the minimum amount will be included in the calculations.
Craftspeople will be counted using the database of the Hunarmand Association, while citizens temporarily working abroad will be counted based on data from the Agency for Migration under the Cabinet of Ministers and the Interior Ministry.
The Ministry of Agriculture will provide information on citizens allocated agricultural land.
People who raise silkworm cocoons at home, manually weave silk and silk carpets, and grow mulberry fruits and seedlings on household plots will be counted using the database of the Agency for Light Industry Development.
Officially registered unemployed people will be counted through the ministry’s Employment Service information system. Informally employed and unregistered unemployed people will be identified through labor force surveys.
Who is considered employed or unemployed
The methodology defines employed people as working-age citizens who worked for pay or income for at least two hours during the reference week. Working age begins at 16 and lasts until pension eligibility: from 16 to 60 for men and from 16 to 55 for women. People with Group I and II disabilities and those receiving preferential pensions are excluded from this group.
An unemployed person is defined as a working-age individual who did not work during the reference week, sought employment during the previous month and was ready to start work within two weeks. In addition to the overall unemployment rate, unemployment among young people aged 16 to 30 will be calculated separately.
The total number of employed people will include those working in the formal and informal sectors, as well as labor migrants. Informally employed people include, among others, members of peasant farms who do not pay social tax; people working informally in private households, such as nannies, domestic workers, cooks, drivers and guards; as well as construction workers, loaders, cleaners and general laborers hired without formal employment contracts.
How unemployed people will be identified
The targeted list of unemployed and informally employed people will be compiled on the electronic platform balans.mehnat.uz.
Every quarter, agencies will submit administrative data to the platform by the fifth day of the following month. The system will automatically assign citizens to categories, including employees of organizations, students, pensioners, people with disabilities, women with children under two, entrepreneurs, self-employed people, craftspeople, labor migrants and others.
Citizens who cannot be assigned to any category will be included on a list of people with an unknown employment status. These lists, broken down by mahalla, will be sent through the Online Mahalla platform to assistants to district and city governors responsible for entrepreneurship development, employment and poverty reduction.
Once every quarter, by the end of the month following the reporting period, governor’s assistants will visit each citizen on the list at their place of residence, identify unemployed and informally employed people, and enter the data into the platform.
Labor force surveys
Informal employment will be determined through sample labor force surveys conducted in line with recommendations of the International Labour Organization four times a year — in March, June, September and December. Household members aged 15 and older will be interviewed. The sample must cover at least 0.5% of households in each district and city.
Interviewers will include employees of district departments for poverty reduction and employment assistance and governor’s assistants.
Responses will be entered into an electronic questionnaire. Each quarter, ministry and institute supervisors will randomly check about 5% of surveyed households. Completed questionnaires will be stored for 10 years.
Territories free of unemployment
The resolution also establishes criteria for the status of a “territory free of unemployment.” A district or city will receive the status if its official unemployment rate does not exceed 3.5% and the number of vacancies is at least 80% of the number of jobseekers.
If unemployment exceeds 3.5% or the vacancy ratio falls below 80%, the territory will lose the status at the end of the quarter.
Labor demand and forecasts
The Institute for Poverty and Labor Market Research under the Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment will conduct annual sociological surveys by 1 July to assess employers’ demand for professions, specialties and qualifications. Proposals for workforce training will be prepared based on the findings.
The estimated labor resources balance will be compiled quarterly, the reporting balance annually, and the forecast balance annually for the following calendar year.
The forecast balance for the republic and regions must be prepared by 1 November, while those for districts and cities must be completed by 1 December. Ministries, agencies and local authorities will use the balance when determining the need for new jobs and parameters of employment programs.
With the adoption of the new document, a number of previous government decisions were repealed, including Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1011 of 22 December 2017 on improving the methodology for compiling the labor resources balance.
