Piedad Urdinola, director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane)revealed this September 30, the behavior of the labor market in Colombia during the month of August.
For the eighth month of the year, unemployment closed at 9.7%while the employed personnel reached 58.3%. This unemployment figure represents a increase of 0.4 percentage points compared to August 2023.
(You can read: The keys to the unemployment figure in the country in August of 9.7%).
As Dane explains, The unemployed population nationwide saw an increase of 136,000 people in August 2024compared to the same month of the previous year, “no significant variations“.
The growth occurred in the national total (5.8%), thirteen cities and metropolitan areas (7.2%), Other headers (5.9%), 10 cities (5.6%) and Populated centers and dispersed rural areas (1.0%). Now, the population outside the labor force had a statistically significant increase of 242,000 people in Other headerswith a variation of 6.3%.
Unemployment
EFE
In the case of the employed population, there was an increase of 1.1% in the national total and in the thirteen cities and metropolitan areas there was a variation of 2.2%, with a contribution of 1.0 pp.
(Further: The paths that economic reactivation should take in Colombia).
For its part, Other headings registered a negative variation of 1.1%. Now, if looked at by geographic domain, in thirteen cities and metropolitan areas there was an increase of 255,000 employed women, with a statistically significant variation of 5.2%.
Artistic activities, entertainment, recreation and other service activities It was the branch of economic activity that contributed the most to the employed population in August 2024, with 0.8 pp
By gender
This month, the prominence of women has been gaining ground in the labor market. According to the data, this is explained by greater female hiring compared to male hiring for this month. However, The male presence in the employed population remained above that of the female, with an absolute difference of 3.7 million people.
For August, in the employed population, which was 23.4 million peopleit was found that this is composed of 13.5 million men and 9.8 million women.
(Besides: Population in Colombia would have already fallen, according to analysis by the Bank of the Republic).
Here, it is worth mentioning that, compared to August of last year, the absolute variation in the case of men was 68,000 people who went to workcompared to the 189,000 registered by women.
Unemployment
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On the other hand, in the case of the unemployed populationthis was made up of 2.5 million people in August, that is, 1.2 million men and 1.3 million women.
One of the data to highlight at this point is that unemployment for Colombian men has been increasing at a higher rate than for women. In the case of the male sex, this data represents a percentage variation of 11.2%while In the case of women, this was 1.2% (both data regarding August 2023).
By branches of economic activity
By percentage, the sector with the highest occupation data was Vehicle trade and repairwith 17.5%. This is followed by Agriculture, livestock, hunting, forestry and fishing (14.5%); public administration and defenseeducation and human health care (12.3%); Manufacturing industries (10.3%); Artistic activities, entertainment and recreation (9.2%).
(You may be interested in: What the pension reform establishes for those who have 1,150 weeks of contributions).
However, if observed by contribution, Artistic activities, entertainment, recreation was the one that had the greatest preponderance, with 0.8 pp
This is followed, in order: Vehicle trade and repair (0.7pp); Accommodation and food services (0.5pp); Agriculture, livestock, hunting, forestry and fishing (0.3pp) and Transportation and storage (0.2pp).
Outside Europe, unemployment rates remained stable or increased in March 2024.
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By age
Despite the aging of the Colombian population and its effects on the labor market, Colombia continues to be a country with a workforcecomposed mainly of people between 25 and 54 years of agewhich, for August had a statistically significant absolute variation of 311,000 people, closing the eighth month of the year at 16.2 million people.
This is followed by the data for people aged 55 and over, which closed August at 4,226,000 people, a slight reduction of 3,000 people compared to August 2023. Finally, there is the group of people aged 15 to 54, with 2,901,000 people, 51,000 fewer people than in the same month of 2023.
(Read also: Attorney General’s Office: ‘weakening control entities would seriously affect democracy’).
Regarding unemployment, 1.5 million people between 25 and 54 years old were registered within this group714,000 people between 15 and 24 years old and 276,000 people aged 55 and over.
Formality and informality
For the month of August, the informality rate in the country it had a slight increase of one percentage point compared to the same month last year, closing at 56.0%.
In absolute numbers, For the eighth month of the year, informality represented 13.1 million peoplecompared to the 10.3 million people registered in the formal market.
Although in the cities formality prevailed over informality (6.9 million people in formality compared to 5.2 million people in informality), this second area manages to take advantage in the dispersed populated and rural centers, with 4 million of people in the informal sector, compared to 762,000 people in the formal sector.
PORTFOLIO
