Colombia | In April, the number of employed persons continued to increase

In April, the national unemployment rate was 11.2%, 4.3 p.p. lower than a year ago, in the same month and the urban rate was 11.1%, 6.4 p.p. lower than a year ago. Between March and April 2022, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by 0.4 p.p. at the national level and by 0.9 p.p. at the urban level.

Key points

• Key points:
• The figures, seasonally adjusted, show a dynamic employment, which grew, every month, from November 2021 to April 2022, and had a slight setback in March 2022. Between October 2021 and April 2022, the number of jobs increased by 1.2 million people, adding to the 3.9 million that had recovered between April 2020 and October 2021 (from the 5.7 million lost in the pandemic, between February and April 2020).
• Specifically in April, 73 thousand jobs were generated, compared to March, at the national level, which would leave 512 thousand jobs to be recovered in order to reach the pre-pandemic level of February 2020.
• Labor market dynamism, since late 2021, was reflected in a reduction in the population outside the labor force (inactive population) of 1.1 million in 6 months, between October 2021 and April 2022, similar to the reduction observed between April 2020 and October 2021 (1.3 million). Despite progress, with more people entering the labor force in recent months, there are currently 1.9 million more inactive people than in February 2020, before the pandemic.
• Going forward, we expect, as observed in April, that employment will continue to be driven by the increased dynamism of the service economy, which is highly labor-intensive and shows high levels of economic activity. In addition, the full opening of schools and other child care and elder care services will continue to allow for an increase in labor participation. We expect the increased employment dynamism to result in further growth in the labor force.

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