Venezuelan Unemployment Drops to New Lows

Venezuela’s unemployment rate dropped to a new low in May, to 8.0%, the lowest level in over a decade, reported the country’s National Institute of Statistic yesterday.
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Caracas, June 22, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com)— Venezuela’s unemployment rate dropped to a new low in May, to 8.0%, the lowest level in over a decade, reported the country’s National Institute of Statistic yesterday.

This means that out of a total workforce of 12.1 million, 973,375 are without work. This is 2.2% lower than the same time last year, which means that there were 240,572 fewer unemployed than 12 months ago. Since the total employable workforce increased, though, 484,330 found work in that time period.

The largest drop in unemployment was among the young, between the ages of 15 and 24, where there were 108,279 fewer unemployed.

The relationship between formally and informally employed, that is, between those who enjoy legal workplace benefits and those who do not, also improved in the past year. The portion of formally employed Venezuelans rose a full 1%, from 54.9% to 55.9%.

Despite this increase in formal employment, though, the increase in total employment was so great that the raw number of both formally and informally employed increased. According to the INE, there were 49,699 more informally employed Venezuelans than a year ago.

Informal employment includes people who work in businesses with less than five employees, domestic workers, and most self-employed workers, among others.