Colombia’s unemployment rate is 10.3% in May 2024 | Employment | Economy

Colombia’s unemployment rate was 10.3% in May 2024, the National Statistics Institute (Dane) revealed in its latest labor market report published this Friday.

(Lea: Shorter working hours are coming: what does it mean for business?).

The report said, This figure is lower than 10.5% in the same month of 2023 and lower than 10.6% last month (April 2024).

Compared to the same month last year (10.5%), this figure fell by 0.2 percentage points (pp) and meant that the number of employed people increased by 463,000.

For its part, global participation was 64.1% and occupancy was 57.5%. Those rates for May 2023 were 63.9% and 57.2%, respectively.

(Via: “Rate War”: Colombian banks announce lower home loan rates).

The combined unemployment rate for the 13 cities and metropolitan areas was 10.3% in Maycompared to 11.2% in the same month of 2023.

Likewise, the global participation rate was 67.1%, up 1.4 percentage points from May 2023 (65.7%). Finally, the occupancy rate was 60.2%, up 1.9 percentage points from the same month in 2023 (58.3%).

For the Danes, In May 2024, the national overall unemployment rate for women was 12.1%, while the unemployment rate for men was 9.0%, with a gender gap of 3.1 percentage points.

In addition, the gender labor force gap in 13 cities and metropolitan areas hit a record high of less than 1 percentage point in May, narrowing by 0.8 percentage points, the highest level since May 2016.

“This is one of the most important data of this press conference. We observed that the employment gap between men and women in 13 cities and metropolitan areas was less than one percentage point,” This was stressed by Andrea Ramírez Pisco, deputy director of the Danish company, who published these figures this Friday.

The sectors of activity that contributed most to the growth in employment were artistic activities, entertainment, leisure and other service activities; apart from construction.

As for the municipalities with the highest unemployment rates, the entity revealed that in the quarter from March to May 2024, they were: Quibdó, with 28.6%; Riohacha, with 19.5%; and Florence, with 19.5%. The lowest rates were in Bucaramanga (8.8%), Santa Marta (9.3%) and Medellín (9.4%).

In response to the data reported by Dane, Jackeline Piraján, an economist at Scotiabank Colpatria, said: “While this is the lowest unemployment rate we have seen since 2018, it does show us that this slowing economic environment is preventing Colombia from reaching unemployment below double digits. In this sense, we highlight that compared to the previous year, there has been the creation of about 487,000 new jobs, 95% of which are concentrated in Colombia’s urban areas”.

Piranjan stressed that it has been observed that “Formalism dominates job creation, which is good news”However, the informality rate in Colombia continues to remain above 55% nationally, a factor that requires continued monitoring.

“We are still seeing some impact of the slowdown on job creation, particularly in sectors where consumer demand has been most affected, and perhaps commercial and some industrial producers are facing the same challenges in this regard. The sector has also destroyed jobs in this slowdown, while the services sector remains resilient but the momentum may be weakened””, the analyst concluded.

briefcase