Category: GILS News
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GTUC and GEA Issued a Rare Joint Statement on Minimum Wage: What It Signals for Social Dialogue
When Georgia’s main trade union confederation and employer association agreed publicly on the need for minimum wage reform, it should have been a turning point. It wasn’t. In April 2023, the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC) and the Georgian Employers Association (GEA) issued a joint statement calling for a review of Georgia’s statutory minimum wage.…
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Labour Underutilisation in Georgia Is Double the Headline Unemployment Rate: What the LFS Misses
The 13.3% unemployment rate captures one dimension of Georgia’s labour market slack. The ILO’s composite underutilisation measure — at approximately 21% — captures the full picture. Georgia’s official unemployment rate of 13.3 percent in 2024 is the figure that appears in government communiqués, international assessments, and economic forecasts. It is a real number, derived from…
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ETF: Skills Development Is the Missing Link in Georgia’s Labour Market Reform Agenda
The European Training Foundation’s 2024 assessment identifies vocational education reform as the single highest-impact lever for Georgian labour market improvement. The European Training Foundation (ETF), the EU agency responsible for supporting vocational education and training reform in partner countries, published its 2024 assessment of Georgia’s skills development system in September 2024. The document — part…
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Georgia’s Gender Equality Law: Strong on Paper, Structurally Weak in Implementation
The 2010 Gender Equality Law and its 2020 amendments create comprehensive formal obligations — none of which are routinely enforced. Georgia’s Law on Gender Equality was adopted in 2010, amended significantly in 2020, and sits within a broader legislative framework that includes the Law on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (2014) and the…
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Georgia’s Collective Bargaining Coverage Is 4% — One of the Lowest in the Eastern Partnership
Collective bargaining covers only 4 percent of Georgian private sector workers. The legal framework for expansion exists; the institutional will to use it does not. Collective bargaining — the process by which employers and trade unions negotiate wages, working conditions, and employment terms on behalf of groups of workers — covers approximately 4 percent of…
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OECD: Employment Rates in Eastern Partnership Countries Are Recovering — But Georgia’s Informal Sector Masks the Real Picture
New OECD data shows structural employment gaps across the Eastern Partnership remain despite a decade of economic growth. The OECD Employment Outlook 2024, published in July 2024, includes a dedicated section on labour market trends in Eastern Partnership countries — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The findings confirm what national labour force surveys have…