Unemployment in Chile falls to 8.5%, lowest figure since the pandemic arrived

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The unemployment rate in Chile dropped to 8.5% last August, which means a decrease of 4.4 percentage points compared to the same period of the previous year and the lowest figure since March 2020, when the pandemic arrived in the country, informed this Thursday (30) the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

This figure results from the increase in the labor force (9.6%), lower than that presented by the employed (14.8%) and the 27.6% decrease in the unemployed, the institution added.

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The inter-annual drop is partly explained by the high comparison base of August of the previous year when the country was coming out of a severe first wave of the Covid-19 that brought unemployment to 12.9%.

By gender, the unemployment rate for women stood at 8.7% and for men at 8.5%, decreasing 3.4 and 5 percentage points respectively compared to August 2020.

Seasonally adjusted, the index decreased 0.3 percentage points from the previous month as a result of the increase in the labor force (0.5%), the decrease in the number of unemployed (1.4%), and the rise in the number of employed (0.8%).

The number of employed persons increased by 14.8%, with a more significant impact on men (14.9%) than on women (14.8%) and mainly due to the expansion of the construction (52.1%), commerce (17.9%), and transportation (25.5%) sectors.

Meanwhile, by occupational category, the principal increases occurred in self-employed workers (37.4%) and formal employees (8.3%).

The informal employment rate stood at 27.1%, growing 4.6 percentage points in twelve months, and the number of informally employed increased by 38.3%, affected by both men (42.4%) and women (33%).

The pandemic, which has left more than 1.65 million people infected and almost 37,500 dead, has been under control in Chile for two months, which has partially recovered normality in parallel to a vaccination process that has reached more than 88% of the target population (15 million) with two doses.

In August, the Central Bank increased its GDP growth projection for 2021, estimating that it will range between 10.5% and 11.5%, while the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) pointed to an increase 9.2% for this year.