Bulgaria’s Employment Strategy Struggles to Shift Focus from Temporary Subsidies to Long-Term Skills
Bulgaria’s Ministry of Labor and Social Policy released its National Employment Action Plan (NAP) for 2025 in early May,
A total of 3.6% of enterprises in Bulgaria use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, according to data from a study by the National Statistical Institute.
More often this happens in large companies with more than 250 employees (13.8%). The share of medium-sized enterprises (with between 50 and 249 employees) that work with artificial intelligence is 5.5 percent, and among smaller ones only 3% use this technology.
In 2023, 96.3% of non-financial enterprises with 10 or more employees have access to the Internet. 89.2% of enterprises have a fixed Internet connection, and in 46.6% the maximum data download speed is higher than 100 Mbps, statistics show.
The relative share of workers to whom the employer has provided access to the Internet is 39.7%. The global network is most widely used in companies from the "Creation and dissemination of information and creative products; telecommunications" sector (92.2%), and the least - in the manufacturing industry (25.5%).
Every second company (50.4%) has its own website, which is most often used to describe the offered goods and services and price information (37.9%).
In 2023, 38.0% of businesses use various types of social media to grow their business and expand their web presence. The most popular are social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, Yammer, Viadeo, etc.), in which 37.2% of enterprises maintain their profile, followed by websites and multimedia sharing applications such as YouTube and Instagram - 13.2%.
In 2023, 21.7% of enterprises use ERP software. The share of companies that have a customer relationship management (CRM) application is smaller - 10.5%, as well as those using business intelligence (BI) software - 4.2%.
Between 50,000 and 70,000 foreign workers may enter Bulgaria by the end of 2025 if the current pace of labor import continues
In recent weeks, Bulgaria has seen a noticeable uptick in demand for euro banknotes
The adoption of the euro in Bulgaria is not expected to cause fast loans to become more expensive
With the tourist season now underway and the first waves of visitors arriving at the Northern Black Sea resorts, employers are once again facing a familiar and worsening challenge
Although converting leva into euros may appear straightforward - just divide by the fixed rate of 1.95583 - reality brings far more complexity
The Bulgarian National Bank will stay the course with its conservative and stability-oriented monetary policy even after the country enters the eurozone
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