Jamaica on cusp of record employment

Jamaica recorded the second highest level of employment ever in April, data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica reveals, with 1,269,300 workers, just 3,400 short of the 1,272,700 individuals employed in January 2020, the previous high, resulting in an unemployment rate of 6 percent compared to 7.3 percent in the 2020 period.
The April outturn is the lowest level of unemployment on record, beating the 6.2 percent in January this year.
The labour force was 1.373 million in January 2020, some 20,000 more than 1.35 million employed in April this year, but the number of persons classified as unemployed is 81,000 compared with 100,200 in January 2020. There are 746,000 persons outside the labour force, including retirees and persons in their mid teen years, but the job seeking rate is 3.8 percent or around 51,000 persons and is down from 4.9 percent at the beginning of 2020. The 2020 employment was the last report before the country saw its borders closed in March to 12.6 percent in July as 150,000 persons lost their jobs.
The fall in the unemployment rate occurred when the stopover tourist arrivals were only 72 percent of what it was in 2019. The latest data out of the sector indicating that it is back to 2019 levels would lead to more persons being employed in the industry for the June quarter as such, the numbers for July are likely to show that the unemployment rate will likely decline further, with the country recording record employment.