On July 2, 2020, artisans and informal vendors sit in a restaurant in Bogotá that had to close and went bankrupt. GUILLERMO LEGARIA (Getty Images)
The first unemployment figures since Gustavo Petro took office show that it continues to fall and that more and more people are working in Colombia. In July this year, the rate was 11%, while in the same month of 2021 it was 13.1%. In the case of employed persons, the increase was from 20,159,000 to 22,987,000. In addition, the informality rate fell from 59.4 to 58.1%.
This good news reinforces that of economic growth and bodes well for a society that has lived in recent years between protests, anti-elite voices and a general sense of disenchantment and resentment. Recent polls, such as the July Invamer poll, show that Colombians are generally less pessimistic, as Petro’s election was a sign that a change in the status quo is possible and can happen.
In addition to these general data, information published this Wednesday by the National Statistics Administration (DANE) shows that unemployment among women (13.9%) remains higher than among men (8.8%). It is also above average for young people (18%), Africans (14.6%) and LGBTI people (15.1%). And for Venezuelan migrants, the situation depends on how recent their arrival in the country is. Among those who have entered from Venezuela in the past 12 months, the rate is very high at 21.8%. But for those who arrived between 2017 and 2021, the bulk of the 2.5 million migrants, the problem is similar to that of all Colombians (12.9% are unemployed). And looking only at the men who arrived during this period, they are less unemployed (7.6%) than the national average. All of this shows that labor law integration takes time but is making progress.
However, unemployment figures remain high for Colombia’s recent history and forecasts that growth will slow in the coming months. The best unemployment result was at the end of the Juan Manuel Santos government and at the beginning of the Iván Duque government, when it was below 10% (it reached 7.8% in October 2013), but since November 2018 it has been around two digits. Although it hit 20.9% when the economy shut down due to the pandemic in April 2020, that peak fell quickly when it reopened, though not to previous levels. It closed 2020 at 14.2%, and while it’s been falling since then, it hasn’t broken a tricky floor.
“The challenges of the labor market are still the same,” says José María Roldán, an expert in labor market economics. “We are returning to a situation that was not good.” The resulting challenge facing the new government is both lower unemployment while achieving his goal of improving the quality of what already exists, a goal Petro has had since his campaign.
In response to the criticism that makes us serious @JorgeARestrepo On my proposal to create quality work in Colombia, rural and urban, and to increase real income in society, I explain my position:
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 30, 2018
For now, the Labor Secretary has been talking about changing labor regulations to improve workers’ earnings, for example by increasing the hours when they have to pay more because they are considered night hours. That announcement, one of those that has businesspeople nervous, went no further, and the administration has already made it clear that no labor reform will yet be tabled in Congress.
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