NSO updates on socioeconomic developments

Statisticians of the National Statistics Office (NSO) D.Baasan and N.Ulziikhand virtually presented the Socioeconomics Report for September on Tuesday morning...

Statisticians of the National Statistics Office (NSO) D.Baasan and N.Ulziikhand virtually presented the Socioeconomics Report for September on Tuesday morning.

The report covered population, labor market, social and health insurances and welfare, education, intellectual property, meteorology, air pollution, crime, economic indicators, state budget, balance of payments, foreign trade, prices, agriculture, transport, and tourism.

While social indicators, mainly on health and mortality, came out positive, economic indicators such as unemployment and fiscal balance saw negative impact in the first nine months of the year, most likely due to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

POPULATION

In the first nine months of 2020, 57,056 mothers delivered 57,490 babies. Compared to the same period of last year, mothers who gave birth decreased by 1,025 (1.8 percent) and newborn babies decreased by 1,035 (1.8 percent).

Births per 1,000 capita decreased by 0.6 percentage point year-on-year, while deaths per 1,000 capita fell nu 0.3 percentage point.

As of September, births per 1,000 population (crude birth rate) was 17.2, deaths per 1,000 population (crude death rate) was 3.6, and the natural increase per 1,000 population was 13.6.

UNEMPLOYMENT

Labor agencies registered 4,700 newly unemployed people, found jobs for 1,400 people, and delisted 3,700 people from the unemployment registry due to inactive job seeking in September.

In Ulaanbaatar, 1,700 people were registered as unemployed, while 456 people found jobs.

Compared to September 2019, the number of newly registered unemployed people dropped by 2,600 (35.7 percent), the number of newly hired people decreased by 1,000 (42.5 percent) and the number of people delisted from the unemployment register cut down by 2,000 people (35 percent).

At the end of September, the total number of registered job seekers became 27,500, almost 65 percent of whom have no jobs at all but 35 percent are employed and looking for a new job. The unemployment rate has been improving since a sudden increase between October 2019 and January 2020. The majority of job seekers are women, accounting for 53 percent of total registered unemployed people.

At the national level, 338 (1.9 percent) people living with disabilities are registered as unemployed, out of which 171 (50.6 percent) are women.

NSO found that one in every two registered unemployed has high school education, and one in every three registered unemployed has diploma or bachelor’s degree. By age, 54.8 percent of all unemployed are young people aged between 15 and 34.

The report covered the situation of contracted foreign workers in Mongolia. By the end of the third quarter of 2020, 4,400 foreign workers from 92 foreign countries were employed under labor contracts, including those in employment for pay/ profit and those in volunteer work without pay. Compared with the same period of last year, the number of countries and the number of foreign workers decreased by 9 countries and 6,000 people respectively.

Out of all foreign workers in Mongolia, 3,800 (86.7 percent) were male and 600 (13.3 percent) were female. Most of them (47 percent) came from China, 6.6 percent from Russia, 5.9 percent from Australia, 4.6 percent from South Korea, 4.2 percent from Vietnam, 4 percent from the USA, 3.4 percent from South Africa, 2.9 percent from the Philippines, 2.4 percent from the UK, and 1.7 percent from Japan. The remaining 17.3 percent were from other countries.

By occupation, the highest percentage of foreign workers or around 1,600 people (38.1 percent) was professionals and the lowest percentage or 1 person (0.02 percent) was skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery worker. As of the third quarter of 2020, 1,700 foreign workers (39.3 percent) are working in mining and quarrying sector, 709 (16.2 percent) in wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, 614 (14 percent) in education sector, and 472 (10.8 percent) in construction sector. The rest worked in manufacturing sector, transportation and storage services, and administrative and support services.

STATE BUDGET

While total revenue of the state budget reached 7.3 trillion MNT with equilibrated revenue standing at 6.7 trillion MNT, total expenditure and net lending amounted to 9.4 trillion MNT by the end of September, resulting in a whopping 2.7 trillion MNT deficit.

In September, the equilibrated fiscal balance came out with a deficit of 82.7 billion MNT, decreasing by 108.2 billion MNT (56.7 percent) compared to the previous month.

Tax revenue accounted for 83.3 percent of the state budget revenue, non-tax revenue for 8.3 percent, the future heritage fund for 8 percent and the stabilization fund made up 0.4 percent.

In the first nine months of 2020, tax revenue reached 6.1 trillion MNT, down by 900 billion MNT (13.1 percent) year-on-year. Income tax revenue declined by 330.9 billion MNT or 18.5 percent, social security revenue by 183.9 billion MNT or 13 percent, value added tax revenue by 146.9 billion MNT or 8.3 percent, excise tax revenue by 74.7 billion MNT or 11.4 percent, and foreign activity revenue fell by 33.4 billion MNT or 5.7 percent.

Fiscal spending and lending increased 30 percent to 9.4 trillion MNT in the reference period due to 1.7 trillion MNT (29.6 percent) increase in current expenditure and 610 billion MNT (46.2 percent) increase in capital expenditure. However, net lending decreased by 147.1 billion MNT (91.6 percent) compared to the same period of 2019.

SOCIAL AND HEALTH INSURANCE

The social insurance fund’s revenue reached 1.9 trillion MNT in the reference period, reflecting a decrease of 115.9 billion MNT (5.7 percent) year-on-year. This was mainly caused by the decrease of 39.3 billion MNT or 25.8 percent in occupational accident insurance revenue.

The social insurance fund’s expense saw 431.5 billion MNT (22.9 percent) increase, totaling to 2.3 trillion MNT. This was reportedly caused by increased spending of the pension fund (up by 245.4 billion MNT), occupational accident insurance (up by MNT 187.5 billion) and benefits fund expenditure (14.6 billion MNT or 15.1 percent) compared to the same period of last year.

The government is implementing some social protection measures to stimulate the economy and to improve people's livelihoods during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this scope, 200,000 MNT will be provided to nongovernment entities, organization, universities and voluntary insurers companies whose activities are disrupted due to the pandemic and whose income is declining. In the first nine months of 2020, 43.2 billion MNT was granted to 216,100 (by duplicated counting) insured people.

In the reference period, 733.3 billion MNT were granted to 1.2 million children below the age of 18 as children's cash allowance.