Venezuela Unemployment Drops,
despite World Crisis
CARACAS - Despite the world crisis,
Venezuela hopes to reduce its unemployment
rate to seven percent by the end of the
year, after April registered 0.5 percent
less than the previous month.
According to the president of the National
Statistics Institute, Elias Eljuri, the
predicted economic recovery in the second
semester will allow cutting unemployment,
which is currently at 8.2 percent.
Welfare policies allow maintaining
acceptable unemployment levels, with a
decreasing trend despite effects of an
adverse world context.
Eljuri recalled that a decade ago, when Hugo
Chavez assumed the presidency, unemployment
rate was at 14.6 percent, and climbed to 19
percent after the oil strike, but has been
decreasing steadily since then.
In April, the labor force rose by 176,000
people, but registered a little drop
compared to the previous year, he added.
Meanwhile, formal employment climbed from 49
percent in 1999 to 57 percent, and informal
jobs dropped from 50 percent to nearly 42
percent.
In the last ten years, social investment
reached 330 billion dollars, five times over
the one reported in the previous decade. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
