Venezuela’s Unemployment Rate Drops to Lowest Level in a Decade

The unemployment rate in Venezuela dropped to 6.1 percent in November, the lowest percentage in over a decade. Carora, December 16, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)– The unemployment rate in Venezuela dropped to 6.1 percent in November, the lowest percentage in over a decade, President Hugo Chavez said in a nationally televised meeting with his cabinet.

“While in the United States and Europe the rate has multiplied, although we shouldn’t be happy about that, here we are enjoying the lowest rating in years,” Chavez said.

The rate is a decrease from the month of October, when it stood at 6.7 percent, Chavez added. The government aims to end the year with the jobless rate below six percent.

Venezuela has experienced nearly five years of robust economic growth, fueled by government spending of oil revenues on development projects and investments in many sectors of the economy.

He explained that “capitalism is the cause of the closing of huge factories that are leaving hundreds of thousands without work in North America and Europe.”

Chavez said that his government “has made these types of improvements possible, through the construction of the new socialist model, a profoundly democratic socialism.”