Chile Now Has the Highest Unemployment Rate in South America
CHILE · ECONOMY
Key Facts
—The headline: Chile’s jobless rate hit 9.1% in the February-April quarter, its highest in nearly five years.
—Regional rank: A review of official data across South America puts Chile at the top of the region for unemployment.
—Who is hit hardest: Women’s unemployment reached 10.5% and youth unemployment 22.8%, against 8.0% for men.
—A long stretch: The national rate has now stayed above 8% for 40 consecutive months.
—The caveat: Some neighbors post lower jobless rates but far higher informality, above 55% in Bolivia and Ecuador versus about 27% in Chile.
Official figures have pushed Chile’s jobless rate past 9%, the highest since the pandemic, and a regional comparison now places the country at the top of South America, with women and young workers bearing the heaviest weight.
What the unemployment rate shows
Chile’s National Statistics Institute, the agency known as the INE, reported that unemployment reached 9.1% in the rolling February-April quarter of 2026, the highest level since June 2021, at the height of the pandemic. The rate rose 0.3 percentage points over twelve months, as the labor force grew faster than the number of people actually in work.
In Santiago and its surroundings, the most populous part of the country, the jobless rate climbed even higher, to 9.7%. The agency noted that the ranks of the unemployed swelled both with people who had lost jobs and with those looking for work for the first time, a group that rose especially sharply.
The highest in the region
A comparison drawn from the official statistics agencies of South American countries places Chile at the top of the regional unemployment ranking. The distance from some neighbors is wide: Bolivia and Ecuador report jobless rates near 3%, less than a third of Chile’s.
That gap, however, comes with an important qualification. Those lower-unemployment economies carry far higher informality, with more than 55% of workers in informal jobs in Bolivia and Ecuador, against about 27% in Chile. In such economies many people work out of subsistence necessity, at any income and in precarious conditions, which keeps measured unemployment low without signaling a healthier labor market.
Women and young workers bear the brunt
The strain is uneven. Unemployment among women rose to 10.5%, while the rate for men was 8.0%. For young people the picture is starker still, with youth unemployment at 22.8%, climbing to 28% among young women and 18.7% among young men.
The quality of the jobs being created drew particular concern. Labor Minister Tomás Rau said that of roughly 68,000 jobs added, some 40,000 formal positions were destroyed while 108,000 informal ones were created, a shift toward less secure work even where headline employment held up. Informality nationally stood near 27%.
A government on the defensive
The figures landed as a political problem. The economy and mining minister, Daniel Mas, called the high jobless rate inherited from more than a decade of stagnation, describing nearly 950,000 people out of work as a genuine social drama, and cast renewed growth as a moral duty. The labor minister said the government was treating the situation as a labor emergency.
With the national rate stuck above 8% for 40 straight months, the debate is shifting from any single quarter to a more structural question about why Chile’s labor market has been unable to absorb a growing workforce, and what it would take to reverse a trend that predates the latest reading.
Frequently Asked Questions
How high is Chile’s unemployment?
The jobless rate reached 9.1% in the February-April 2026 quarter, its highest in nearly five years, according to the national statistics agency. In Santiago it was higher still, at 9.7%.
Is it really the highest in South America?
A comparison of official national data places Chile at the top of the region. Some neighbors report lower rates but with far higher informality, which complicates direct comparison.
Who is most affected?
Women’s unemployment reached 10.5% and youth unemployment 22.8%, both well above the 8.0% rate for men. Job creation also skewed toward informal rather than formal work.
How long has unemployment been elevated?
The national rate has stayed above 8% for 40 consecutive months, pointing to a structural rather than purely cyclical weakness in Chile’s labor market.
Connected Coverage
For more on the region’s economies, see Argentina’s disputed disinflation and Guatemala’s push for investment grade.
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