MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unemployment in Chile drops to 7%

Unemployment in Chile dropped half a point to 7% in the November-January quarter compared to the same period a year ago according to the country's National Statistics Institute in Santiago.

This is the lowest unemployment rate for the period since 1997/98, when it reached 5.2%.

In the last twelve months 99.760 new jobs were created, particularly contract employment, taking the total global supply of jobs to 156.650. On the other hand self employed jobs dropped by 54.390.

Financial services as well as Community, Social and Personal services proved the most dynamic job creation sectors.

Women took the largest share o newly created jobs in the last twelve months, 57.4%, representing 40.4% of all the unemployed