Artisans and informal vendors sit in a restaurant that had to close and went bankrupt, in Bogotá, on July 02, 2020. GUILLERMO LEGARIA (Getty Images)
The first unemployment data since Gustavo Petro became president shows that it continues to fall and there are more and more people working in Colombia.
As of July of this year, the rate was 11%, when in the same month of 2021 it was 13.1%.
In terms of employed persons, the increase was from 20,159,000 to 22,987,000.
In addition, the informality rate fell from 59.4 to 58.1%.
This good news reinforces that of economic growth and is a good sign for a society that has lived in recent years between protests, votes against the elites and in general a feeling of disenchantment and annoyance.
Recent polls, such as July's Invamer Poll, show that Colombians in general are less pessimistic, thanks to the fact that Petro's election was a sign that change from the
status quo
is possible and can happen.
In addition to this general data, the information revealed this Wednesday by the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) shows that unemployment continues to be higher among women (13.9%) than among men (8.8%).
It is also higher than the average among young people (18%), Africans (14.6%) and LGBTI (15.1%).
And for Venezuelan migrants, the situation depends on how recent their arrival in the country is.
Among those who arrived in the last 12 months from Venezuela, the rate is very high, at 21.8%.
But for those who arrived between 2017 and 2021, the bulk of the 2.5 million migrants, the problem is similar to that of all Colombians (12.9% are unemployed).
And when looking only at the men who arrived in that period, they are less unemployed (7.6%) than the national average.
All this shows that in labor terms,
However, the unemployment figure remains high for Colombia's recent past and for forecasts that growth will slow down in the coming months.
The best result in unemployment occurred at the end of the Government of Juan Manuel Santos and the beginning of that of Iván Duque, when it was below 10% (it reached 7.8% in October 2013), but since November 2018 it has remained at two digits.
Although with the closure of the economy due to the pandemic it reached 20.9% in April 2020, that peak fell rapidly with the reopening, although not to the previous levels.
It closed 2020 at 14.2%, and although it has been falling since then, it has not broken a floor that is difficult to overcome.
The challenge that follows, and that the new government faces, is both to lower unemployment and at the same time achieve its goal of improving the quality of what exists, a goal of Petro since his campaign.
In response to the serious criticism that @JorgeARestrepo makes of my proposal to generate quality work in Colombia, both rural and urban, and the growth of real income in society, I explain my position:
– Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 30, 2018
For now, the Minister of Labor has talked about changing labor rules to improve workers' income, for example by increasing the hours in which they must pay more because they are considered night hours.
That announcement, one of those that created nervousness among businessmen, has not gone beyond that and the Government has already clarified that a labor reform will not yet be presented to Congress.
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