Jamaica’s unemployment rate was held at 4.5 percent In July 2023, the same as April this year but the number of persons employed rose marginally to 1.3151 million persons up from 1.3126 million in April this year, data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin) reports show.
Some 47,000 more persons were employed in July 2023 compared to July 2022 and reflects an 8.5 percent increase over the 43,300 newly employed in April this year.
There was an increase, mostly males, in persons employed in the occupation group ‘Elementary Occupations’, while more females were employed as ‘Service Workers, Shop and Market Sales Workers’ and ‘Clerks’. The industry, with the largest increase in employment was in Real Estate and Other Business Services and ‘Construction.
In July 2023, there were 1,377,300 persons in the Labour Force, an increase of 19,600 or 1.4 percent compared to July 2022. The male labour force increased by 8,400 or 1.2 percent to 734,400 and the female by 11,200 (1.8 percent) to 624,900.
Statin reports that the participation rate was 65.6 per cent, an increase of 0.9 percentage points, which compares favourably worldwide. The participation rate for males is 71.2 percent and females 60.1 percent, for an increase by 0.7 and 1.0 percentage points, respectively.
Jamaica’s labour market has tightened.
For comparison, Investopedia reports that “the World Bank’s most recent data from 2022, shows that the U.S. participation rate falls in the middle of the pack at 62 percent, a few points ahead of the world rate of 60 percent.”
In July 2023, the number of unemployed persons was 62,200, a decrease of 27,500 or a solid 30.7 percent compared to July 2022 and marginally up from 61,300 in April. The number of unemployed males was 24,600, a decrease of 13,000 or 34.6 percent. The number of unemployed females was 37,600, a decrease of 14,500 or 27.8 percent. The number of unemployed youths in the age group of 14 -24 years decreased by 9,000 or26.0 percent to 25,600.
If the rate for September holds or falls in October the twelve month rate will fall below 5 percent.
Jamaica’s 
The recovery of 
Jamaica’s employment rate has been pushed by the considerable focus on tourism expansion and the advent and rapid expansion in the BPO sector that now employs around 5 percent of the workforce, with the numbers employed said to be over 60,000 and addition a sharp increase in construction activity for residential and commercial demand lifted employment in that area.
The July 2023 numbers also jumped 15 percent over the 447,934 passengers using the airport in July 2019, the last year that the data was not affected by the disruption to the industry by Cocid19 pandemic. Passenger traffic through the Montego Bay Airport, for the year to date, is up a solid 25.8 percent to 3.17 million in 2023, over 2.52 million in 2022 and nearly 6 percent up on the 2.998 million in 2019.
Jamaica’s unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level on record in April 2023, with only 4.5 percent of persons said to be out of work, according to data released today by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin) and is 1.5 percentage points lower than the 6 percent in April 2022.
