Jamaica’s unemployment rate

Unemployment steadies for Jamaica

October 18, 2023 by IC Insider.com

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.

Filed Under: Economy, Feature Stories Tagged With: Jamaica's unemployment rate, July 2023 unemployment in Jamaica, Statin, Statistical Institute of Jamaica

A 600% plunge in Unemployment in Jamaica

September 2, 2023 by IC Insider.com

When the Jamaica unemployed fell to the lowest level on record to 4.5 percent in April this year, it was falling precipitously by more than six times from the levels that were at unhealthy and chronically high of 24 to just under 28 percent between 1977 and 1989.

Jamaica’s record low unemployment at 4.5% in April 2023.

The April 2023 outcome is down from 6 percent in April last year and from 6.6 percent in July 2022, while the number of persons employed is at its highest level ever, with the total number of employed persons at 1.313 million in April this year. The highest level of employment before was 1.27 million in January 2020. Knowledgeable persons have expressed their views on the numbers, with one suggesting that Jamaica has always had a low level of unemployment. That is entirely at variance with the facts; see chart.
The country has only experienced rates below 15 percent for a few years, primarily after 2007.
There has also been some focus on the number of hours used to determine whether persons are included in the employed pool. What has not been acknowledged by critics of the low unemployment level is the many businesses finding it more difficult to recruit workers to employ, as well as the need to increase wages to retain those they have. Finding workers going forward is going to be a real challenge and one that will cause companies to look carefully at their operations to see where they can employ cost savings methods to deliver goods and services with minimal dislocations. If the economy continues to expand, it will result in workers coming in from overseas.
When Jamaicans start to pump gas for their vehicles, it will dawn on us that things have changed and that development is only a few years away.
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.
Data compiled by ICInsider.com from the Bank of Jamaica, the World Bank and Statin show that unemployment averaged 25.8 percent between 1977-89. The rate fell in 1990 to 19.1 percent and 15.7 percent in 1992 and remained around 15 percent until 2006, then fell to 11.5 percent in 2007 and 11.3 percent in 2008 and 9.9 percent in 2009 before reversing back up to mid-teens up to 2015 and had slowly drifted down since with the exception of 2022 when it climbed to 10.7 following the economic fallout from the Covid19 pandemic.

Filed Under: Economy, Feature Stories Tagged With: Bank Of Jamaica, Emerging markets, Jamaica's unemployment rate, Statin, World Bank

Unemployment at record levels in Jamaica

April 22, 2022 by IC Insider.com

As Jamaica’s economy continues to recover from the negative effects of Covid-19, with a sharp drop in the number of persons unemployed and the number of persons employed is 16,000 less than the previous highest previous level in January 2020, according to data released by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin)
“In January 2022, there were 1,257,100 employed persons, an increase of 57,800 or 4.8 percent over January 2021”, Statin reported. But the 2022 numbers lag that of January 2020 with 1,273 million persons employed. With a full labour force of 1.34 million only 83,000 persons were regarded as unemployed as of January, the lowest on record with an unemployment rate of 6.2 percent bettering the previous lowest rate of 7.1 percent in October last year and much better than 8.8 percent for the same quarter of 2021.
While the unemployed numbers have fallen, the number of persons in the workforce declined from 1.373 million in 2020 to 1.34 million in 2022 a drop of 39,000. The job seeking rate declined to just 3.9 percent in the latest survey down from 4.9 percent in January 2020.
The largest increase in employment by occupation group was in ‘Clerks’. There were 120,500 persons employed in the occupation group ‘Clerks’ in January 2022, increased by 22,100 or 22.5 percent compared to January 2021.
Real Estate and Other Business Services had the largest increase by industry group compared to January 2021.

The Hampshire Apartments complex a Guardian Life project.

There were 126,600 persons employed in this industry group in January 2022, an increase of 25,200 or 24.9 percent versus the 2021 quarter. The second highest increase was in ‘Accommodation and Food Service Activities’, which employed 13,900 more persons.
The number of persons classified as Outside the Labour Force was 755,600 in January 2022, a decrease of 22,400 or 2.9 percent from 778,000 in January 2021.
Of import, the data would have done at a period when the tourism sector was operating at around 30 percent capacity as well as some other businesses that were yet to recover fully from the decline since 2020, as such the next reading could result in another fall in the unemployment rate and a strong possibility that total employment could get to record levels.

Filed Under: Economy, General News Tagged With: Jamaica's unemployment rate, Statin, Statistical Institute of Jamaica

Jamaica’s unemployment drops again

April 15, 2021 by IC Insider.com

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Jamaica’s unemployment rate has dropped from 10.7 percent in October last year to 8.9 percent in January this year, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than the rate in January 2020, data from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica shows.
According to the body charged with gather and reporting on Jamaica’s economic data, there were 1,194,800 employed persons at the time of the survey, 74,300 or 5.9 percent fewer persons compared to January 2020. “The largest decline in employment by occupation was among ‘Service Workers and Shop and Market Sales Workers’, while the industry with the largest decline in employment was ‘Accommodation and Food Service Activities,” Statin said.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy Tagged With: Jamaica's unemployment rate, January 2021 unemployment in Jamaica, Statin, Statistical Institute of Jamaica

Unemployment drops below 100K

January 17, 2020 by IC Insider.com

The number of unemployed persons in October 2019 fell under 100,000 to 96,700, with a fall of 19,000 persons after 29,200 persons were employed over October 2018 and moving the number of employed to 1.248 million persons.
The development in Jamaica’s labour market saw the country’s unemployment rate hitting the lowest level in record history at 7.2 percent down from 8.7 percent for October 2018 and 7.8 percent in July last year.
The occupation group ‘Clerks’ had the most significant increase in employment of 17,700 persons for the twelve months to October. The second-highest increase was for the occupation group ‘Service Workers and Shop and Market Sales Workers’, which increased by 13,900.
The largest change in employment by industry group was in ‘Public Administration and Defence; Compulsory Social Security’ which increased by 10,800 persons, moving from 60,300 in October 2018 to 71,100 in October 2019. Employment in Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry & Fishing declined by 6,500 workers.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy Tagged With: Jamaica employment, Jamaica's unemployment rate

Jamaica’s historical low unemployment

April 16, 2019 by IC Insider.com

The unemployment rate fell to its lowest level on record, with January 2019 unemployed falling 1.6 percentage points from 9.6 percent in January 2018 and ending at was 8 percent for the first month of 2019.
The fall in the unemployed number arose from an increase in the Employed Labour Force for January 2019 of 1,232,700, some 28,600 or 2.4 percent more than in January 2018. The largest increase in employment was in the occupation group ‘Clerks’ 12,800 or 15.8 percent, which moved to 94,000 in January 2019. Of the increase in employment in this group, females accounted for 8,300 persons.
Female employment was 3.5 percent more and males 1.4 percent than in the 2018 period, Statin data shows. The increase in employment for females was more than twice that of males. The number of employed males increased by 9,500 to 673,500 and employed females by 19,100 to 559,200.
More females were employed in the occupation groups ‘Professionals, Senior Officials and Technicians’ and ‘Clerks’. There was also an increase in the number of females employed in the industry groups ‘Hotels & Restaurants Services’ and ‘Real Estate, Renting and Business Activities’.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy Tagged With: Jamaica's unemployment rate, Statistical Institute of Jamaica

More females employed

January 21, 2019 by IC Insider.com

Females accounted for 7,600 persons of the 7,800 persons between October 2017 and October 2018 to 261,800 persons employed as ‘Professionals, Senior Officials and Technicians’ that had the second largest increase in employment in the period in Jamaica, data from Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin) reported today.
The largest change in employment by industry group was in ‘Real Estate, Renting & Business Activities’ with an increase of 9,700 persons, (11.9 percent) moving from 81,700 in October 2017 to 91,400 in October 2018. Employment, however, decreased in ‘Transport, Storage and Communication’ by 7,500 persons (9.4 percent) to 72,000 over the same period.
Statin stated, “the unemployment rate was 8.7 percent in October last year and represented a reduction of 1.8 percentage points relative to 10.5 percent in October 2017”. There was an increase in the number of persons employed, particularly females in the industry group ‘Real Estate, Renting & Business Activities’
The Employed Labour Force for October 2018 was 1,219,700, 14,400 or 1.2 percent higher than in October 2017.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy Tagged With: Jamaica's unemployment rate, Statin

Lowest unemployment for Jamaica

October 31, 2018 by IC Insider.com

Jamaica’s unemployment dropped to the lowest on record at 8.4 percent in July 2018, down from July 2017 when the rate was 11.3 percent. The previous lowest unemployed rate was 8.6 percent reached on October 2007 before the country economy went into contraction.
Importantly, 1,226,400 persons were employed in July this year, an increase of 12,800 above the number recorded in July 2017. Helping with the sharp reduction in the rate of employment, was a simultaneous reduction in the number of persons in the labour force to 1,338,200 persons, a decrease of 2.2 percent compared to July 2017, Statin stated in their release of the data.
The male labour force, of 723,600 persons in July 2018 decreased by 1.5 percent relative to July 2017 while the female labour force decreased by 3 percent to 614,600 persons. The number of males employed increased by 5,900 to 681,800 while female employment increased by 6,900 to 544,600.

Construction saw increased employment.

The number of persons employed in the Construction industry in July 2018 increased by 9,400 persons to 103,700, compared to July 2017. A similar increase was observed in this industry for employed males. Among employed females, Wholesale & Retail, Repair of Motor Vehicle & Equipment industry accounted for the largest increase in employment of 5,200 moving to 129,400 in July 2018.
The number of unemployed persons declined by 27.7 percent to 111,800 persons in July 2018, compared to July 2017. The number of unemployed males decreased by 28.6 percent to 41,800, while unemployed females decreased by 27.2 percent to 70,000. Unemployed youth, aged 14 to 24 years, decreased by 14,600 persons to 45,200 in July 2018.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy, Feature Stories Tagged With: Employment, Jamaica's unemployment rate

Employment jumps 10,700 for 2018

August 2, 2018 by IC Insider.com

Employment in Jamaica jumped by 10,700 persons since the start of 2018, to 1,217,300 persons in April, and 14,700 more than the 1,202,600 recorded in April last year.
A total of 1,206,600 persons, were employed, in January 2018 this year data out of the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (Statin)shows.
The effect of the increase in the number of persons employed, is that the unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent In April, compared to 12.2 percent in April 2017, but inched up slightly from the 9.6 percent recorded in January, this year.
“Among major occupation groups, the largest increase in the Employed Labour Force between April 2017 and April 2018 occurred in ‘Elementary Occupations’. This occupation group includes, among other jobs, car washers, street vendors and housekeepers in hotels. There were 174,900 persons employed in this occupation group in April 2018, an increase of 13,200 or 8.2 percent when compared with April 2017,” the Statin report showed.

Filed Under: Breaking News, Economy Tagged With: Jamaica employment, Jamaica's unemployment rate, Statin

23,000 more Jamaicans employed

April 30, 2018 by IC Insider.com

More Jamaicans continue to gain employment as the economic growth gathers pace with 22,600 persons added to the employment list, an increase of 1.9 percent more persons being employed over the year to January.
The increased number of employed persons, lifted the employed in January 2018 to 1,206,600, up from 1,184,000 employed in January 2017.
Over the period, male employment increased by a mere 1,900 persons over the twelve month period to reach 664,200 in January 2018 while female employment increased by 20,700 or 4 percent to 542,400.
According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6 percent at the start of the year and is down sharply from 12.7 percent in January 2017. The lower rate of unemployment came as a result of decline in the total number of persons in the labour force and the increase in employment. In October last year the unemployment rate fell to 10.4 percent.