Colombia | In February, national employment improves while urban remains weak

Summary

In February 2026, the national unemployment rate stood at 9.2%, below the 10.3% recorded a year ago. The annual reduction of 1.1 p.p. was mainly due to the increase in the occupation rate, which was accompanied by dynamic employment growth (2.7%).

Key points

• Key points:
• The seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate stood at 8.4%, lower than the 8.7% of the previous month and in line with the levels observed at the end of 2025.
• Salaried employment (4.6%) grew more than non-salaried (1.0%), driven by the creation of jobs in private companies, which allowed informality to be reduced from 57.6% to 55.3%.
• Professional activities (+250 thousand) and public administration, education and health (+244 thousand) led job creation, while agriculture destroyed 363 thousand jobs, possibly affected by the rainy season.
• From a regional perspective, employment dynamism was led by other municipal seats, which contributed 1.6 p.p. to total growth (2.7%), concentrating job creation outside the main cities.
• Urban employment growth (1.3%) was considerably lower than the national rate (2.7%), consolidating two consecutive months of moderation in job generation in the main cities.

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