MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unemployment in Chile slightly up: 8.3%

Unemployment in Chile during the mobile February-April quarter reached 8.3%, a slight 0.1% increase over the same period a year ago, and 0.4% above the first quarter of 2006, according to the county's Statistics Institute, INE.

This means the number of unemployed in Chile is 546.880, a 5.39% increase over Feb-Apr 2005 and 5.45% over the 2006 Jan-March quarter.

The figure is made up of 452.410 people without jobs (4.58% above the same period a year ago) and 94.470 who are looking for a job for the first time in their lives (6.84% over Jan-March 2006).

Overall this also shows that Chile's working force, or active population, now stands at 54.9% of total population.

The INE release also points out that both men and women are equally interested in becoming active population, but with different results.

Unemployment among men stands at 6.7% and among women 11,2%.

This means a slight 0.1% decrease for men and a 0.5% increase for ladies compared to the same period a year ago.

However compared to the 2006 Jan-March quarter, both rates increased 0.1% and 0.9%.