The situation of the Colombian labor market continues its recovery after the impact left by the pandemic in the last two years, but gaps persist among workers that affect some social groups.
(Colombia, among the OECD countries that increased unemployment in March).
Recently, the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) has been publishing a series of bulletins on the employment situation of people on disability, the LGBT community, and also on the population that recognizes itself as peasant. This, according to the entity, with the aim of “promote the statistical visibility of prioritized population groups that have been historically discriminated against.”
During the first quarter the national unemployment rate was 13.20%, but the indicator for the same period stood at 16.9% for the population with disabilities.
On the contrary, the population without disabilities presented an unemployment rate of 13.1%, which implies the existence of a gap of 3.7 percentage points.
According to Dane records, there are 2.49 million people with disabilities in the country, and of these, there are 391,000 working, while there are 79,000 looking for work. In this group, 1.6 million citizens are out of the labor force, meaning they are not employed but are not looking for work either.
(The challenges of the recovery of employment in the country).
Hence, the employment rate for this population is 18.6%, while for people without disabilities it is 57.1%, a difference of 38.5 percentage points.
By sectors, commerce is the activity that most occupies this population, with 20.6% of workers with disabilities, which represents around 80,000 people. Likewise, the majority of these people who are employed, 53.2%, are self-employed.
LGBT POPULATION
Another group that has been characterizing the Dane is the LGBT population, and official records estimate a total of 518,000 people. lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans, which is equivalent to 1.4% of the adult population in the country.
The statistics show that the unemployment rate shows a difference of 3.2 percentage points, given an unemployment rate of 16.2% for the LGBT population and 13.0% for the non-LGBT population.
“It is interesting that both the disabled and the LGBT population have a higher unemployment rate, although not much higher than the rest of the population,” mentions Adrián Garlati, director of the Economics career at the Javeriana University, who clarifies that it is Very recently, the measurement that the Dane is making in population groups such as people with disabilities or LGBT, “so you have to look carefully at both populations.”
In the case of the population with disabilities, it stands out that “There are many types of disabilities, and the type of work that the person can perform will also depend on that, and that may probably be the most important barrier.”
In the case of the LGBT population, Garlati points out that it is important to see if “Perhaps some degree of discrimination plays a role in the unemployment rate.”
PEASANT POPULATION
Another population group for which reports have recently been presented is the population that subjectively identifies as peasant, which according to Dane represents 14.46 million people over 15 years of age in the country.
For them, the unemployment rate was 11.1% in the period January-March 2022, 2.9 percentage points lower than that of the population that is not considered rural, which is 14%.
(The profile of Colombians who cannot find a job).
“Typically in rural areas, people do keep themselves busier, because field work is carried out throughout the year, especially if the person has a property or works for someone else’s property, while in seasonal jobs there is times when the person is not busy. clarifies Garlati, who indicates that this makes unemployment lower.
Of this population, 44.2% say they work in agriculture, livestock, hunting or fishing; 13% to commerce and 7% to industry.
However, within them there is another gap, while for men the unemployment rate is 7.8%, unemployment in rural women amounts to 17.9%, a difference of 10.1 percentage points.
LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
