A total of 79.1% of Bulgarians aged 50-74 stopped working after retirement, 16.7% continued working and 4.2% were not working at the time of retirement, shows data from the pension and labour market participation module included in the Labour Force Survey 2023, the National Statistical Institute (NSI) said on 17 December.
The data are published on the NSI website. The survey was co-funded by the European Commission.
Of the people who continued to work after retirement, 62.8% worked for financial reasons, 31.3% because they enjoyed working, being productive or socially engaged, and 5.9% for other reasons.
In 2023, the majority of people who retired stopped working (64.7%) or did not work at all (22.4%), while only 13% continued working, according to the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) by Eurostat, published on the European statistics agency's website.
The highest proportion of people who continued working was in the Baltic countries - Estonia (54.9%), Latvia (44.2%) and Lithuania (43.%), while the lowest levels were recorded in Romania (1.7%), Greece (4.2%) and Spain (4.9%).
The highest proportions of people who continue to work because they enjoy it are reported in Denmark (61%), the Netherlands (59.6%) and Italy (51.7%). The lowest proportions of workers stating this as a reason were recorded in Spain (17.9%), Cyprus (19.1%) and Slovakia (20.4%).
On the other hand, financial need is the main reason for continued labour force participation in Cyprus (68.6%), Romania (54.3%) and Bulgaria (53.6%). The lowest share of people stating financial need as a reason was reported in Sweden (9.4%), the Czech Republic (12.4%) and Luxembourg (14.4%).