Jamaica’s employment rate

9% unemployment rate for Jamaica

Jamaica’s unemployment rate was 9 percent for the period to April 2021, and marginally worse than the January survey with unemployment of 9 percent, an increase for the same period last year, data released today from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica shows.
The latest data is an improvement over the 9 percent reported for January this year.
According to Statin, 1,206 million Jamaicans are employed during March this year, up from 1,195 shown by the January survey but 3.2 percent worse than in April 2019. No survey was done for April 2020 last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The art, entertainment and other service industries suffered the worse decline in employment.

Little change in employed in March

Jamaica’s unemployment rate drops to 13.6 percent in March compared to March last year, according to data released by the Statistical institute of Jamaica (STATIN), but the rate is worse than it was in December last year.
The unemployment rate in December was 13.4 percent according to Statin data for that period. There were 1,133,000 employed persons in March this year, which was 25,700 more than the 1,107,300 recorded in April 2013, the Statin labour report said, the March 2014 numbers are only a marginally better than the 1,130,500 persons employed in December last yea.
According to the Statin data, the country’s labour force in March was 1.311 billion persons down from 1.322 billion in Match 2013 as 11,300 persons exited the work force over the one year period, the report stated. At the same time 25,700 persons found work across a wide cross section of the work force. The number of persons classified as outside the Labour Force was 769,900 In March 2014 and an increase of 16,200 over 2013.
Who got jobs?|The Occupation group ‘Elementary Occupations’ increased by 18,200 persons or 12.8 percent, moving from 141,700 in April 2013 to 159,900 in March and the group, ‘Professionals, Senior Officials and Technicians’, increased from 241,900 persons in March 2013 to 251,700 persons (4.1 percent). The group ‘Craft and Related Trades Workers’ had the largest decline for the period, moving from 139,300 in March 2013 to 134,700 in 2014, resulting in a decline of 4,600 (3.3 percent) persons.
The number of persons employed in the ‘Hotels & Restaurants Services’ increased by 9,100 (13.4 percent) persons while the group ‘Transport, Storage and Communication’ increased by 7,300 (10.5 percent) persons.