Like other eastern German cities, Gera has only a small amount of foreign population: circa 1.6% are non-Germans by citizenship and overall 5.0% are migrants (according to 2011 EU census). Differing from the national average, the biggest groups of migrants in Gera are Russians, Vietnamese people and Ukrainians. During recent years, the economic situation of the city improved a bit: the unemployment rate declined from 22% in 2005 to 11% in 2013, which is still the highest one out of all Thuringian districts. Due to the official atheism in former GDR, most of the population is non-religious. 9.8% are members of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and 2.6% are Catholics (according to 2011 EU census) making one of the world's lowest amounts of religious people.