The unemployment rate in Colombia stood at 13.7% in January, which represents a decrease of 0.9 percentage points compared to the same month of 2022 when it was at 14.6%, the Administrative Department reported on Tuesday. National Statistics (DANE).
According to that entity, women reached an unemployment rate of 17.4% and men 11.0%.
On the other hand, the figure for January is almost three points higher than the unemployment rate for December, when it stood at 10.3%.
In the 13 largest cities and metropolitan areas included in the calculation, unemployment was slightly higher than the national total, at 14.5%, similar to 14.8% in January last year, the information added.
“In January 2023, the employed population of the country was 21.5 million people, compared to the 20.7 million employed in the same month in 2022, thus representing a variation of 3.8%,” indicated DANE.
According to the agency, the 13 cities and metropolitan areas contributed 1.5 percentage points to the national variation, and “in this domain there was an employed population of 10.1 million people, 317,000 more people compared to January 2022.” when there were 9.8 million.
Meanwhile, the national employment rate increased 1.3 points last January compared to the first month of 2022 and reached 54.7%, while the unemployed population fell by 139,000 people, reaching 3.4 million people. jobless Colombians, a drop of 3.9%.
“In the 13 cities and metropolitan areas, the total number of unemployed was 1.7 million, representing an increase of 0.5%,” added DANE.
By sex, the reduction in the unemployed population in January 2023 for the national total occurred in women, since 147,000 managed to enter the labor market, while in men there was an increase of 8,000 unemployed.
DANE also analyzed the data according to age ranges to verify that the decrease in unemployment among women was focused on the group between 25 and 54 years of age, where it fell by 136,000, and the increase in unemployed among men was focused on the same age range, with an increase of 30,000.
The agency also measured labor informality and pointed out that for January of this year this contingent had a decrease of 0.9 percentage points and stood at 57.1% of the total, while in the 13 cities and metropolitan areas it remained at 42.4%.