Paraguay: unemployment stagnated at the end of 2021

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The unemployment rate in Paraguay of 6.8% stagnated in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the previous three months and showed a slight decrease compared to 2020, said the National Institute of Statistics (INE) director, Iván Ojeda.

“We see practically a stagnation compared to the previous quarter, so it practically had no variation; but compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, it had a slight difference of 0.4 percentage points (pp) [less],” the official commented in an interview.

He explained that this 0.4 pp decrease means that there were 10,042 fewer unemployed people.

In the fourth quarter, unemployment reached 256,860 people, of which more than 104,000 were men (41% of the total) and more than 152,000 were women (59%), according to INE data released on February 18.

Compared to the previous quarter, there was an upward difference of 0.3 pp, with women most affected by unemployment.

Between the third and fourth quarters, female unemployment increased 1.6 pp, from 7.9% to 9.6%.

On the employment front, more than 52,000 people joined the labor force in the fourth quarter, according to INE.

However, Ojeda said that if one makes “a balance on the labor force, there are more than 400,000 people with some work difficulty, 11.4%, 4 pp less than the same period of the previous year”.

According to the official, the primary sector was affected by the drought at the end of last year, and for this reason, there was a reduction of employed people of about 35,000 people.

But a more significant recovery was observed in the secondary and tertiary sectors, typical of suburban areas.

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