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The labor market in Cali and the metropolitan area shows a tendency to recovery, according to recent data reported by Dane.
For the August-October quarter of this year there were 1,135,000 employed people in the city, 53,000 more than in the July-September quarter. Likewise, there were 277,000 people without work at the end of October, 31,000 less compared to the data for September.
With this, the unemployment rate in the city for the August-October quarter stood at 19.6%, a figure that is still high (seven percentage points more compared to the same period in 2019). But it was reduced compared to the quarter that ended in September of this year when unemployment was at 22.2%.
One of the sectors that presents a better outlook for job recovery is commerce. According to del Dane, Cali had, in the period analyzed, 258,000 people working in this field, 26,000 more than the immediately previous quarter.
You can read: Unemployment rate in Colombia was 14.7% in October, revealed the Dane
Additionally, Juan Daniel Oviedo, director of the entity, explained that last October the only sector that created jobs compared to the same month of the previous year was commerce with a positive variation of 34,000. However, Carlos Andrés Pérez, Economic and of Competitiveness of the Chamber of Commerce of Cali (CCC), that the city still has great challenges in labor matters.
For October, the capital of the Valley was the sixth population with the highest growth in the number of unemployed people compared to the August-October quarter of the previous year, registering a variation of 54.4%, while cities such as Barranquilla and Medellín registered unemployment figures 44.6% and 45.4% higher compared to the same period.
There were 21,275,000 people employed in Colombia as of October of this year, according to Dane.
What happened in Colombia?
In October 2020, the unemployment rate in the country was 14.7%. The data shows a recovery compared to the results of September when unemployment was 15.8%.
This means that there were 21.2 million employed people last October, 1.53 million less than the same month in 2019. Likewise, there were 3.65 million unemployed, that is, 1.16 million more than in 2019.
María Claudia Llanes, an economist at BBVA Research, explained that as of October, 70% of the 6.0 million jobs lost between February and April had recovered and 77% of the 4.7 million that had passed into the labor force returned to work inactivity between February and April.
“From now on, we hope that employment will continue to increase and that the unemployed will continue to decline but at ever slower rates, which will delay the unemployment rate in reaching pre-pandemic levels.”
Jaime Alberto Cabal, president of Fenalco, said that the data is positive and encouraging, however he recognizes that the pandemic has meant a greater number of unemployed in sectors such as: commerce, accommodation, recreational activities.
“The great challenge that remains for us is to try to reduce these figures, especially in cities like Bogotá, Medellín and Cali. The positive is that other capitals such as Neiva and Ibagué have managed to reduce their unemployment levels ”.
3,652,000 Colombians did not have an occupation at the end of October 2020.
For Bruce Mac Master, president of the National Association of Entrepreneurs, Andi, “it is significant that jobs continue to be recovered as a result of the economic reactivation process and that more companies can operate. It is a clear sign of the path that the country must continue, which must be accompanied by new short-term measures to help the process move forward. It also has to be a reason to continue working for formalization in order to have a fairer labor market ”.
He added that one cannot lose sight of the fact that this is a structural problem that has been occurring since before the Covid-19 pandemic, which is why the major reforms that the country must face to counteract high informality and generate more formal work for more Colombian families.
“It is revealing that, of the 21.2 million employed persons in October 2020, they represent 92% of those employed in the historical maximum for the month of October, which was in 2018, when there were 23 million employed persons in the country” .
Men and women
Gender gaps in the Colombian labor market widened with the pandemic. According to Juan Daniel Oviedo, director of Dane, for every two men who lost their jobs last October, there were 7 less employed women.
The unemployment rate for young people (14 to 28 years old) in the moving quarter August – October 2020 was 23.5%, compared to 17.5% in the same period of 2019.
María Claudia Llanes, an economist at BBVA Research, commented that this is one of the biggest concerns regarding the results of the labor market. . In 2019, the difference in unemployment rates between men and women was 5.5 points and in October it widened to 9.4 points, that is, the gap in the unemployment rate widened by four points ”, explained the economist.
Likewise, for Bruce Mac Master, president of Andi, he commented that attention must be focused on the situation of women who have been the most affected by the deterioration of the labor situation, since as indicated by the Dane, the number of unemployment in this population is double that of men.
Thus, in October 2020 there were a total of 414,000 more unemployed men in Colombia compared to the same month last year and a total of 747,000 more women.
On purpose
In the capital of Valle, the monthly unemployment rate registered in October 2020 was 19.7%, which represented an increase of 0.9 percentage points compared to the previous month (September: 18.8%), according to the report by Labor Rhythm of the Chamber of Commerce of Cali.
Likewise, they highlight that among the 23 main cities and metropolitan areas, Cali registered the third highest occupancy rate (53.1%), after Pasto (53.4%) and Bogotá (53.3%) for the August quarter -October.
The population employed as self-employed was 443,000 people, registering an annual decrease of 3.0% and the number of workers affiliated with family compensation funds fell 3.6%.
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