The Government of Uzbekistan has introduced changes to the procedure for accounting for employment and unemployment. The number of working citizens will now be determined based on data from state systems for taxation, labor, migration, and other information resources. Meanwhile, unemployed and informally employed individuals will be identified through quarterly visits to households in mahallas.
Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 522 was signed on September 29, 2026, and came into force on September 30. According to the National Legislation Database, this decision was made in accordance with Presidential Decree No. PP-75 dated February 24, 2025, which concerned measures for organizing the activities of the National Statistical Committee.
The new resolution approves a new format for the labor resource balance, procedures for preparing reporting and forecast balances, the methodology for calculating employment and unemployment, as well as rules for compiling the target list of unemployed and informally employed persons.
The Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the National Statistical Committee, together with other agencies, are obliged to develop and approve administrative data forms within one month. This data must be provided through the interdepartmental integration platform of the e-government system.
Data Sources
The resolution clearly defines the sources of information for each category of employed persons. Data on individual entrepreneurs and their employees, self-employed people, and peasant farm workers will be obtained from the Tax Committee database. Employees of legal entities will be accounted for using the hardware and software complex of the Unified National Labor System of the Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment, as well as income tax reports. Only cases where remuneration is at least the minimum amount will be included in the calculations.
Artisans will be accounted for through the Khunrmand Association database, and citizens temporarily working abroad will be accounted for based on data from the Migration Agency under the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Ministry of Agriculture will provide information on citizens who have received agricultural land. People engaged in home sericulture, manual silk and carpet weaving, as well as growing mulberry fruit and seedlings on home plots, will be accounted for through the database of the Light Industry Development Agency.
Officially registered unemployed persons will be accounted for through the information system of the ministry's Employment Service. Informally employed and unregistered unemployed persons will be identified through labor force surveys.
Who is considered employed or unemployed
The methodology defines employed citizens as those of working age who received pay or income for work for at least two hours in the reference week. Working age starts at 16 years old and continues until retirement age: for men—from 16 to 60 years, for women—from 16 to 55 years. Persons with disabilities of groups I and II, as well as recipients of preferential pensions, are excluded from this group.
An unemployed person is defined as a working-age individual who did not work in the reference week, sought work in the previous month, and was ready to start working within two weeks. In addition to the overall unemployment rate, unemployment among youth aged 16 to 30 will be calculated separately.
The total number of employed persons will include both formal and informal sector workers, as well as migrant workers. Informal employees include, among others, members of peasant farms who do not pay social tax; people working informally in private households, such as nannies, domestic workers, cooks, drivers, and security guards; as well as builders, loaders, cleaners, and laborers hired without official employment contracts.
How will the unemployed be identified
The target list of unemployed and informally employed persons will be compiled on the electronic platform balans.mehnat.uz. Quarterly, agencies must submit administrative data to this platform by the fifth day of the following month. The system will automatically categorize citizens, including organization employees, students, pensioners, people with disabilities, women with children under two years old, entrepreneurs, self-employed, artisans, migrant workers, and others.
Citizens who could not be assigned to any category will be placed on the list of persons with unknown employment status. These lists, broken down by mahalla, will be sent through the Online Mahalla platform to assistants of district and city governors responsible for entrepreneurship development, employment, and poverty reduction. Once every quarter, at the end of the month following the reporting period, governor assistants visit every citizen on the list at their place of residence, identify the unemployed and informally employed persons, and enter the data into the platform.
Labor Force Surveys
Informal employment will be determined through selective labor force surveys conducted in accordance with International Labour Organization recommendations four times a year—in March, June, September, and December. Household members aged 15 and over will be interviewed. The sample must cover at least 0.5% of households in each district and city.
Interviewers will include staff from district departments for poverty reduction and employment assistance, as well as governor assistants. Responses will be entered into an electronic questionnaire. Quarterly, heads of ministries and institutes will conduct random checks of about 5% of surveyed households. Completed questionnaires are stored for 10 years.
Unemployment-Free Territories
The resolution also establishes criteria for awarding the status of 'unemployment-free territory'. A district or city will receive this status if its official unemployment rate does not exceed 3.5%, and the number of vacancies is at least 80% of the number of job seekers. If unemployment exceeds 3.5% or the vacancy ratio drops below 80%, the territory will lose this status at the end of the quarter.
Labor Demand and Forecasts
The Institute for Poverty and Labor Market Research at the Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Employment will conduct annual sociological surveys by July 1st to assess employer demand for professions, specialties, and qualifications. Based on the results obtained, proposals for workforce training will be prepared.
The estimated labor resource balance will be compiled quarterly, the reporting balance annually, and the forecast balance annually for the next calendar year. The forecast balance for the republic and regions must be prepared by November 1st, and for districts and cities—by December 1st. Ministries, agencies, and local authorities will use this balance when determining the need for new jobs and parameters of employment programs. The adoption of the new document repealed several previous government decisions, including Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1011 of December 22, 2017, on improving the methodology for compiling the labor resource balance.