One of the discourses that has been accentuated in the country in recent months, related to the labor market, is that the agricultural sector and the Government (regional and national), are the main generators of jobs in this situation in which The slowdown has taken strength away from lines important parts of the economy such as industry, commerce and construction.
This dynamic, in which public administration and primary activities are erratic in job creation while analysts and the market in general ask that a reactivation plan be put in place, led to the Labor Market Observatory and The Social Security Department of the Externado University conducted a review of the issue, finding that this theory is not entirely true.
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In their report, “Where do Colombians work?”these experts zoomed in on the employment behavior by branches of activity and disaggregated the information according to demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the population, finding that employment generated from the official sector is not among the three most important.
Andrés Escobar, a member of the Observatory, said that the three main branches of economic activity that determine the level of employment in the country are wholesale and retail trade, and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles with 17.5% of the total. ; followed by agriculture, livestock, hunting, forestry and fishing with 14.4% and manufacturing industries with 10.6%.
Employment
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In this way, it is proven that the countryside and its work are indeed employing more and more Colombians, which is not the case with the State in general and that although there is a large amount of employment for women, it isThis is being generated in domestic work or low-paid activities.
“At four digits, the activities that have the greatest weight compared to the level of total employed people in the economy are construction of residential buildings, contributing 923,000 workers, equivalent to 4% of employed people, followed by passenger transportation with 867,000 thousand, being 3, 8% and activities of individual households as employers of domestic staff” adding up to 3.1% of the total with 698,000 workers. Then there is the sale of prepared meals to the table and activities to support agriculture; both with 2.9%,” Escobar stated.
Escobar added that “by gender, we found that the classes in which the most women occupy They are the activities of individual households as employers of domestic staff, with a total of 640,000 women, followed by other types of sale of prepared meals and the sale of prepared meals to the table with 443,000 and 440,000 workers respectively.
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Another sector that attracts attention is general interior cleaning of buildings, since Dane figures show that it employs 429,000 women.
An erroneous reading
The accounts of the Externado University made a special review of the public administration and defense, education and human health care division, which represents 12% of the employed; since for them it is making an erroneous reading about its distribution and real contribution when it comes to generating employment.
Employment
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Stefano Farné, director of the Labor Market Observatory, explained that although many analyzes assimilate these workers with public sector employees, this division includes, in addition to defense and mandatory social security plans, employment in sectors such as education. and human health care and social assistance activities, which are mostly developed by private companies.
“Let us assume that of the almost 2.8 million workers in the Administration division Public and defense, education and human health care, only 33% are public employees. In other sub-branches or divisions, many private companies also operate. For example, not all schools or hospitals are public, nor is all health care provided by public sector officials,” said this teacher.
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To understand a little better the real behavior of public employment (generated only by regional and municipal governments), these analysts reviewed the contributing and non-contributing population to a pension fund by type of worker between 2021 and 2024 and found that in many cases There is more of a reduction in positions generated.
For example, if the month of July (most updated report) is compared with the same period of the three immediately preceding years, it is found that there is a drop of more than 80,000 compared to 2021 and of more than 70,000 if compared to the 2022. However, when contrasting with 2023; one has to say that there is a growth of more than 15,000 jobs, only in the official sector.
Thus, Professor Stefano Farné maintains that the fact that the Government takes growth in the broad category of public administration, education and health as an indicator of public job creation could be taken as a mistake; since its real representation in this line does not exceed 35%.
Unemployment
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“On the contrary, and this is worth highlighting, we have to have employment In the private salaried sector it is growing or was growing between 2% and 4%, driven largely by private companies, especially in formal areas. Although this is acceptable to some, it should draw our attention,” Farné said.
Finally, this analyst closed by warning that in recent months the creation of formal employment has slowed, while informal employment has increased, especially among independent or self-employed workers, which is worrying since it reveals a trend towards informality. ; which requires urgent actions by the authorities and the implementation of a reactivation plan.
To this must be added the calls that have been made from various economic analysis centers, so that those engines of the economy that have been in the red for a long time be put into motion as soon as possible and not depend on sectors such as public administration, in the that is not ruled out a contraction, given the spending cuts that the National Government has been making.
