The production industrial and trade sales retail recovered last year and exceeded 2019 levels, although both sectors remain in debt in terms of staff employment.
(Read: 10.2%, Iván Duque’s bet for the 2021 GDP).
At the end of 2021, the manufacturing industry grew 15.9%. While in 2020 it was -0.8%, while in 2019 it had been 1.5%. According to the director of Dane, Juan Daniel Oviedo, the result of last year is positive. In 2021, compared to 2019, real production is 6.6% higher than that generated in 2019, while employed personnel was -3.3%.
In his opinion, “This means that the growth of the manufacturing sector throughout the reactivation path that has unfolded in the Colombian economy has been essentially based on manufacturing domains or lines that are not very labor intensive, such as beverage production, for example, and which is also reflecting an uncertainty where a good part of that growth that has not been enough to compensate for the manufacturing employment that we had in 2019, has occurred in temporary jobs and not permanent jobs”.
The report for the year to date (January-December 2021) in the national total, warns that the real production of the manufacturing industry increased 15.9%, real sales 15.5% and employed personnel 2.7% in compared to the same period in 2020.
Only in December 2021, the Dane Monthly Survey says that in December 2021 compared to the same month in 2020, production increased 13.1%real sales 11.2% and employed personnel 4.5%.
Andi’s president, Bruce Mac Master, analyzed the behavior of the industry, from the Industrial Production Index that Dane also revealed yesterday.
In his opinion, this indicator, which reflects a 10.3% growth for 2021, shows what will happen to growth for the entire economy over the same period. He particularly highlighted the performance of the manufacturing production index, which registers a growth of 15.9% “which is undoubtedly very good news for the country given the need we have to diversify production and exports and given the need we also have to strengthen the creation new job”.
“It will be very important that during the year 2022 this trend can be ratified and we can count on the benefit of having a powerful dynamic industry capable of supporting economic growth.MacMaster said.
(What’s more: Trade balance registers deficit for the eighth year in a row).
IN RETAIL SALES
In the case of commerce, the monthly Dane survey showed that retail and vehicle activity presented a variation of 15.9% in its real sales in December 2021 compared to the same month in 2020. Excluding fuel and vehicle sales, this annual variation stood at 17.6%. Meanwhile, the employed personnel in retail and vehicle trade reflected a variation of 1.9% in December 2021 compared to the same month of the previous year.
Sales made through e-commerce increased 47.8% in December of 2021 compared to the same month of the immediately previous year, contributing 1.2 pp to the annual variation of total retail sales, excluding sales of motor vehicles, motorcycles and their parts (24.2%).
When comparing December 2021 with the same month in 2019, the variation in real sales of retail and vehicles in December 2021 was 13.0% and employment -5.3.
(Read: Factors that could put the sustainability of the economy at risk).
For the year to date, compared to 2020, retail trade increased its sales by 17.8%, but the variation in employment was -1.1%. When comparing with all of 2019, sales grew 8.9% but employed personnel suffered a contraction of -4.6%.
“In two key sectors, the manufacturing sector and the retail, vehicle and fuel sales sector, we are seeing a biennial improvement but structural contractions in their employed personnel”Oviedo pointed out.
BRIEFCASE
