Unemployment in April has dropped to 9%, 1.2 percentage points less than in the same month last year and the lowest rate in 14 years, Colombia’s statistics agency announced Friday.
According to statistics agency DANE, the April unemployment rate has dropped a total of 3.2 percentage points since 2010 when the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos implemented a number of fiscal measures aimed at making employing personnel more attractive to employers.
Unemployment in April
Santos claims policies are successful
Following the release of the latest unemployment statistics, Santos — weeks ahead of a fiercely disputed second election round in which the president hopes to obtain a second term in office — took to the airwaves to stress the success of his government’s labor policies.
“These numbers confirm a tendency that has maintained without variation for 45 subsequent months. For 45 months we have seen the unemployment rate lower than the same month the year before,” said the president.
According to Santos, of the 710 thousand created jobs “the majority … is formal employment with all the legal benefits” like health care ans pension savings.
A Colombian worker is considered employed if he or she works more than four hours a week.According to the DANE, 22.4% of employees polled in April said to not be working enough hours to make ends meet.
Colombia tailing behind Latin America
In spite of a persistent reduction in the country’s unemployment rate, Colombia continues to lag behind Latin America. In 2013, Colombia’s unemployment rate was 50% higher than in Latin America where the average was 6.3% against Colombia’s 9.6%.
