Colombia | 2022: good year in labor terms

In 2022, the unemployment rate was 11.2% nationally, decreasing 2.6 p.p. with respect to 2021. In 2022, the national employment stood at 22 million, 1.6 million more than in 2021 and 0.7 million more than in 2019. In 2022, employment showed greater dynamism than before the pandemic.

Key points

• Key points:
• 68% of the employment created between 2021 and 2022 was salaried (1.1 million), 54% urban (0.9 million), 60% in 5 service sectors (1.0 million). The strong increase in salaried employment brought labor formality from 45.1% to 46.8% in the period.
• Female employment played a leading role in job creation in 2022. Nationally, for every male job created, 1.6 female jobs were generated. This ratio remained high (above 1) in all geographic areas and in two of the three age ranges. Despite the higher growth of female employment, there are still marked gender gaps in the employment rate and unemployment rate.
• In December 2022, the national unemployment rate was 10.3% and the urban unemployment rate was 10.8%, 0.8 and 0.6 percentage points lower than in the same month a year ago, respectively. Adjusting for monthly seasonality, in December the national unemployment rate was above its average for the previous eight months (10.9%), driven up by the urban unemployment rate.
• With data adjusted for seasonal factors, national employment has remained at relatively high and stable levels between May and December 2022, following the strong growth it saw between April 2021 and May 2022 (of 13.4%, 2.6 million workers), once mobility restrictions and social protests were overcome, and with the rebound in activity.

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