Moldova 2025: rural employment falls to 44%, gap with towns doubles

Employment is falling even as unemployment stays near historic lows

NBS data for 2025 depict a labour market that appears calm but is contracting. The employment rate for people aged 15-64 was 50.3%, down 2.0 percentage points on 2024 (52.3%), while the labour force participation rate fell from 54.6% to 52.3%.

At the same time, the ILO unemployment rate for the same age group fell to 3.9%, from 4.1% in 2024. This combination — falling employment alongside falling unemployment — indicates that most people leaving employment do not pass through unemployment but move directly into inactivity: the inactivity rate (15-64) rose from 45.4% in 2024 to 47.7% in 2025, close to half of the working-age population.

For the population aged 15 and over as a whole, the employment rate was 40.2% in 2025, against 42.7% in 2024 — below the 2022 level (40.5%), but above that of 2021 (39.8%) and above the series low recorded in 2020 (38.8%).

Rural areas losing ground: the urban-rural gap has doubled in two years

In 2023 the rural employment rate (15-64) reached 48.9%, the best result in the 2019-2025 series, and the distance from urban areas (55.6%) had narrowed to 6.7 pp. Two years later the gap has doubled: 57.2% in urban areas against 44.0% in rural areas, or 13.2 pp.

In effect, the entire rural gain of 2023 has been lost: -4.9 pp in two years, returning to the 2022 level (44.0%). Urban areas, by contrast, remain above their 2023 level (+1.6 pp), even after correcting from the 2024 peak of 58.6%.

The difference does not stem from unemployment. In 2025 the ILO unemployment rate was 4.2% in urban areas and 3.7% in rural areas (15-64). The data therefore suggest that in the countryside people leave employment mainly by moving into inactivity rather than by actively seeking work. Some of the fluctuation may also reflect the revision of the population base after the census, which is why year-on-year comparisons should be read with caution.

Inactivity, not unemployment, is the central problem

The inactivity rate for those aged 15-64 was 54.4% in rural areas in 2025, against 40.3% in urban areas — a difference of 14.1 pp. In 2023 the same difference was only 7.2 pp (48.8% rural, 41.6% urban).

By sex, the gap has reopened: the employment rate of women aged 15-64 fell from 51.1% in 2024 to 47.4% in 2025, while for men the decline was marginal (from 53.7% to 53.4%). The gender gap thus widened from 2.6 pp to 6.0 pp in a single year. Women's inactivity rate rose to 50.9%, against 44.2% for men.

By age group, the largest losses were recorded among those aged 55-64 (employment of 44.0% in 2025, against 47.9% in 2024, -3.9 pp) and those aged 35-44 (62.9% against 64.9%, -2.0 pp). Young people aged 15-24 are the exception: their employment rate rose from 17.6% to 19.7% and unemployment fell from 9.8% to 7.4% — although 78.7% of them remain outside the labour force.

The demographics behind the figures: who is left in the villages

The usually resident population fell to 2,365,645 at the start of 2026, from 2,388,571 in 2025 and 2,492,278 in 2023 (NBS). The decline is concentrated in rural areas: 1,250,937 residents in 2026, against 1,420,569 in 2023. Part of this difference is nevertheless due to the reclassification of data after the census — in 2024 the urban population rose from 1,071,709 to 1,118,345 in a single year — so the series contains a methodological break between 2023 and 2024.

Ageing is markedly faster in the countryside. The average age in rural areas reached 42.1 years in 2026, against 39.2 years in urban areas. In 2015 the two averages were identical (37.7 years); over 11 years the countryside has aged by 4.4 years and towns by 1.5 years.

Natural population change confirms the trend: in 2025 natural increase was -6.9 per 1,000 inhabitants in rural areas, against -1.2 in urban areas, while the rural mortality rate (15.9‰) was 5.1 points above the urban rate (10.8‰). The national birth rate fell to 9.3‰ in 2025, from 14.2‰ in 2014 — the low point of the series analysed.

Incomes and poverty: the context in which employment is shrinking

The average gross monthly wage reached 15,594.5 lei in 2025, a nominal increase of 11.5% on 2024 (13,990 lei). In foreign currency terms, the average wage was 796 euro, against 726.6 euro in 2024. The dataset analysed does not include the consumer price index, so developments in real terms cannot be calculated here.

Wages, however, are relevant only to those in formal employment — and in rural areas the employment rate (15 and over) was 34.3% in 2025. This is one of the structural explanations for the fact that the absolute poverty rate in 2025 stood at 40.0% in rural areas, against 21.1% in urban areas and 31.1% nationally.

The poverty gap confirms the intensity of the rural phenomenon: 8.93% in villages, against 4.05% in towns, while severity stood at 2.96% against 1.17%. The association between low employment and high poverty is strong, but the available data do not allow a direct causal relationship to be established: migration, age structure and incomes from subsistence agriculture act simultaneously.

Implications for Moldova

First, unemployment indicators are no longer sufficient as a warning signal. With an ILO rate of 3.9% and inactivity of 47.7% (15-64, 2025), the monitoring of employment policy should be anchored in the activity rate and in the share of inactive people available to work, not merely in the number of unemployed.

Second, the 13.2 pp gap in employment and the 18.9 pp gap in the absolute poverty rate between villages and towns (2025) indicate that uniform national measures have uneven effects. The data support the need for differentiated territorial instruments, assessed at district level and not only by area of residence.

Third, the decline in female employment (-3.7 pp in one year, to 47.4%) warrants separate analysis. Women account for roughly half the population aged 15-64, so returning their employment rate to the 2024 level would, arithmetically, offset most of the 2.0 pp fall in total employment.

Fourth, with an average rural age of 42.1 years (2026) and natural increase of -6.9‰ in rural areas (2025), the rural labour force base will contract even in the absence of any further migration. Budget projections and plans for the network of local public services should explicitly incorporate this pace of change.

Sources

• National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova — statistical database
• Eurostat — Database
• World Bank — World Development Indicators