Colombia | Unemployment rate declined in January

The January 2024 national unemployment rate was 12.7%, down from 13.7% in January 2023. Seasonally adjusted, the national rate decreased by 0.4 percentage points (p.p.) between December 2023 and January 2024, although it remains above the values observed in the middle of last year.

Key points

• Key points:
• National job creation accelerated in January (2.5% annual variation, 553 thousand jobs), with respect to December (1.8% annual variation, 396 thousand jobs), but was similar to that observed on average in the last four months of last year (2.5% annual variation, 572 thousand jobs). In January, the boost in employment came mainly from the urban area, whose employment grew 4.6% year-on-year, compared to 0.6% in the rest of the areas.
• Agriculture and the public administration, health and education sectors were the major generators of national employment, contributing 418 thousand (78% of the employment created) of the 553 thousand annual jobs created in January. By category, the greatest boost was in the employment of laborers and day laborers (258 thousand jobs), driven by agriculture. Salaried employment (157 thousand jobs) and men's employment (306 thousand jobs) also contributed significantly to annual employment generation.

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