The open unemployment rate (SU1) stood at 5.3% in April-June 2024, showing a year-on-year reduction of 0.3 percentage points, according to the National Continuous Labor Force Survey (ENCFT) of the Central Bank (BC).
“Regarding the evolution of statistics on unemployment or underutilization of the labor force, it is observed (Chart 5) that the open unemployment rate (underutilization indicator (SU1)), that is, the percentage of the unemployed who are actively seeking work as a proportion of the labor force, decreased by 0.3 percentage points year-on-year, from 5.6% reported in April-June 2023 to 5.3% in the same quarter of 2024,” the document reads.
As for the rate of underutilization of the workforce SU3, very similar to the previously known as the expanded unemployment rate, which takes into account both the openly unemployed (actively seeking work) and people who would be willing to work, even if they are not currently looking for work, the report stresses that presented a decrease of 1.0 pp., going from 11.8% in April-June 2023 to 10.8% in the same period in 2024.
Likewise, it points out that the point estimate of the total number of employed people in the Dominican economy (including formal and informal) exceeded the threshold of five million for the first time, reaching the figure of 5,002,384 workers. “When comparing with respect to April-June 2023, it can be seen that a notable increase of 238,972 new net employed people was verified, equivalent to a year-on-year expansion of 5.0%,” it adds.
The occupancy rate stood at 61.9% in April-June 2024, a historical high for this indicator, 1.8 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in April-June 2023.
The report adds that the degree of insertion of people over 15 years of age in the labor market, measured by the overall participation rate, stood at 65.3% in the second quarter of 2024, 1.7 percentage points higher than that obtained in the same period in 2023.
“The performance of this indicator is due to the increase in the workforce by 235,280 people, as a result of the growth in employment and the reduction of 3,692 openly unemployed, that is, the number of people who actively sought work in the reference period.“, he clarified.
It is noteworthy that 51.6% (123,391) of the net increase in total employment (238,972) corresponds to females, mainly women with a university degree, who make up approximately 60% (73,539) of the new employed persons.
Likewise, he says, analyzing the distribution by age group, it is observed that during the last twelve months the generation of new net jobs was concentrated in adults between the ages of 40-59, representing 41.6% (99,526) of the 238,972 new jobs, followed by the population aged 25-39 (80,129), 60 and over (48,465), and young people aged 15-24 with 10,852 additional jobs.
«When analyzing the increase of 238,972 workers from the perspective of whether they have access to social security benefits through their occupation, it is observed that the number of formal employees increased by 97,402 people, placing the percentage of formality at 43.9% in April-June 2024; while total informality was higher by 141,570 employees compared to the second quarter of 2023, placing the percentage of informality of those employed at 56.1% in April-June 2024,» details the ENCFT and adds that it thus remains below the historical average of 57.1% obtained since the beginning of the ENCFT series in the third quarter of 2014.
“Finally, when taking stock of the analysis of the workforce indicators at the end of the second quarter of 2024, the results of the ENCFT show a favorable performance of the labor market consistent with the resilience of the Dominican economy,” the report states.
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DR is expected to have more than 5 million employees in April-June 2024
