Colombia | Employment grows at two speeds in March: national strength and urban moderation

Summary

The labor market remains solid with national unemployment at historic lows of 8.8% and employment growth of 2.7%. However, a duality persists in the 13 main cities, where unemployment rose to 9.4% and employment growth slowed to 0.8% annually.

Key points

• Key points:
• The unemployment rate fell from 9.6% in March last year to 8.8% in March this year, driven by the occupancy rate which rose to 59.3% compared to 58.5% the previous year.
• The number of employed people reached 24.4 million in seasonally adjusted figures, highlighting an annual increase of 650 thousand jobs in the original data.
• Job quality improved: wage-earning employment grew by 3.4%, outperforming non-wage-earning employment which increased by 2.2%, leading to a reduction in informality from 57.7% to 55.6%.
• The public administration, education, and health sectors led employment generation (+369 thousand), followed by exceptional dynamism in financial and insurance activities (+239 thousand). Conversely, agriculture and industry lost 242 thousand and 166 thousand jobs, respectively.
• The weakness of employment in the 13 main cities suggests pressures associated with the minimum wage increase in a context of higher labor costs.

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