RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina reached its lowest unemployment rate since 2016 and recorded a strong 3.5% increase in the employment rate from 40.1% to 43.6%, the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec) reported Wednesday.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, the employment rate reached 43.6% of the population. It had failed to reach more than 43% since the series began in 2016. The unemployment rate also fell to 7% of the employed population (EAP), the lowest level since 2016.
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On the other hand, the labor force participation rate reached 46.9% of the population in the fourth quarter of last year, increasing by 0.2 percentage points (p.p.) compared to the previous quarter (46.7%) and by 1.9 p.p. compared to the same quarter of 2020 (45%).
LABOR FORCE
Regarding the labor force (46.9%), the Statistical Office indicated that when analyzing specific population groups within the population aged 14 and over, broken down by gender, the labor force participation rate was 69.7% for men and 50.3% for women.
“At the geographic level, the regions with the highest activity rates were Greater Buenos Aires (47.6%), Pampa (47.5%) and Cuyo (47.2%). In contrast, the region with the lowest activity rate was Noreste (42.3%). Again, looking at the size of municipalities, the AT was higher in municipalities with 500,000 or more inhabitants (47.6%) than in municipalities with less than 500,000 inhabitants (43.5%),” he explained.
EMPLOYED POPULATION
Within the employed population (43.6%), Indec highlighted the following points:
- Of the employed population, 73% are wage earners, of which 33.3% have no pension discount. On the other hand, 23.0% are self-employed, 3.5% are employers and 0.4% are unpaid family workers.
- Among the dependent workers, 5.2% used their own machines/equipment to perform their work. In addition, 10.5% of all employed persons worked from home.
Analyzing the employed population by educational level, more than half of the employed (59%) completed secondary school, while 41.1% have a (full or incomplete) college or university education. Regarding the qualification of the main occupation, 51.7% are employed in an operational occupation, 19.2% in a technical occupation, 17.6% in an unskilled occupation, and 10.2% in a professional occupation.
UNEMPLOYED AND INACTIVE PERSONS
Regarding the unemployment rate (7.0% of the EAP), the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses points out that “when considering specific population groups, the unemployment rate for the population aged 14 and over is 7.7% for women and 6.4% for men.”
The regions with the highest unemployment rates were Greater Buenos Aires and Pampa, both with 7.4%. On the other hand, the region with the lowest TD was Patagonia (4.5%).
Regarding the size of municipalities, TD was lower in smaller municipalities: in municipalities with less than 500,000 inhabitants, it was 4.9% of the EAP, while in municipalities with 500,000 or more inhabitants, it was 7.4%, according to Indec.
And he continued, “Regarding the educational level of the unemployed, 72.3% have secondary education, and 27.6% have completed or incomplete college or university education. As for the duration of job search, 54.3% have been looking for work for 1 to 12 months, while 45.7% have been looking for work for more than one year.”
Finally, the number of inactive persons, i.e. those who were not looking for work but were available for work, reached 0.6%.
It should be recalled that between 2007 and 2015, several international organizations and national universities claimed that the Indec statistics were manipulated with the intention of hiding negative data, which led to lawsuits from investors with Argentine bonds abroad.