Latvia’s unemployment rate edged down to 7.0% in the second quarter of 2026 from 7.1% in the previous quarter, but was up from 6.7% in the same period last year. The number of unemployed persons decreased by 0.2 thousand quarter-on-quarter to 66.2 thousand. The unemployment rate for men rose to 8.1% from 7.2%, with the number of unemployed men at 37.8 thousand, while the rate for women fell to 5.9% from 7.0%, with unemployed women totaling 28.4 thousand. The youth unemployment rate (ages 15–24) rose to 15.0%, equivalent to 11.1 thousand people or 16.7% of the total unemployed population. At the same time, 15.6% of the population aged 20–64, or 161.6 thousand people, remained economically inactive, down by 2.3 thousand from the corresponding period a year earlier. Meanwhile, total employment rose by 14.3 thousand to 885.5 thousand, bringing the employment rate to 65.1%, up 1.3 percentage points from the first quarter.