The number of people looking for work and not finding it remains at 9.6%, the lowest figure since August 2018.Unemployment embraces 225 thousand individuals and of them, 116 thousand are men and 109 thousand women, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses.
For the last quarter of the year, it is estimated that this indicator will continue to decline since the growth of the economy will be greater and will close at 4.2%, according to the projections of the Central Bank, more dynamism is expected in the manufacturing, industrial and commercial sectors, for Mother’s Day, Christmas and New Year’s sales.
“The figures are optimistic, since unemployment is always a blow to families, and can also discourage people from seeking additional education and training. If there is more employment, there is more economic growth and more revenue for the treasury,” said Daniel Suchar, a financial analyst.
The number of people who have a job has been stagnant for three months and is around 2.12 million people, of which 1.3 million are men and 793,000 women.And it is that unemployment hits the latter sector of the population more and, in addition, they have incomes below the minimum wage.
“The fall that has been taking place since the beginning of the pandemic to date is worrying. In March 2020, the net labor participation rate for women was 52% and in May 2023 it was 43% (a reduction of nine percentage points),” said Luis Vargas, an economist at the College of Economic Sciences of Costa Rica.
Additionally, the percentage of women without work insurance (22%) is higher than that of men (17%) and while 56% of women receive an income below the minimum wage, in the case of men this percentage is of 47% (difference of 9 percentage points).
Special attention to the condition of women
Given this panorama, “the College of Economic Sciences calls for special attention to be paid to the condition of women in the labor market, it is imperative that precision policies be designed and implemented for the insertion and permanence of women in the labor market.” world of work and in better conditions”, explained Vargas.
Informal employment
Another important aspect is that informal employment was reduced to 832,000 people, of which 525,000 correspond to men and 307,000 to women. There was a statistically significant decrease of 122 thousand people nationwide.Of these people, it was estimated that 428,000 employed persons were independent and 404,000 were salaried or family helpers.
“This is good news because there is a year-on-year reduction in informal employment, however, the labor force continues to decline with a year-on-year reduction of 92,000 people, 85% of these being women,” said Vargas.
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