MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unemployment creeps in Chile with 8.2% in Santiago

Unemployment continues to creep up in Chile, but the construction and financial services sectors softened the blow by adding more jobs in April than any other sector, the Chilean Statistics Institute (INE) reported on Thursday.

Unemployment rate climbed to 7.6% in the period between February and April, the highest rate since October 2007 (7.7%). While the number of people willing to work grew 3.4%, the number of jobs couldn't keep up with that rate, expanding only 2.5%. The rise in unemployment is in line with normal seasonal fluctuations. But this year the economy is slowing and rising fuel prices are raising costs for businesses. This hurts those who are looking for work for the first time, since the work force is growing faster than the amount of work available. Construction led the economy in April, bringing 32,000 more jobs to the market compared to April last year. This was followed by financial services and transport and communications, which together created 62,000 more jobs. For the third time in a row, gas, water and electricity grew--although contracting since last quarter--to create 6,020 more jobs compared to last year. Notably, female employment grew 0.1%, softening the blow of growing total joblessness as male employment contracted 0.2 percent from last year. Expansion in financial services employment, now at just under 6 percent, has been slowing since the November 2007-January 2008 quarter, when it had reached a peak growth rate of nearly 14 percent from that period the year before. Since last quarter, employment in agriculture, hunting and fishing have declined, as well as employment in mining and social services. In the Santiago Metropolitan Region, the unemployment trend was above the national average, rising .3 percent in April to reach 8.2%. But the highest rates of joblessness were in Region I with 13.7% and Region V with 9.9%. The lowest rates of unemployment were in Regions X, XI, and XII, which were all 3% percent or lower in April. The Santiago Times