MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unemployment in Magallanes Region stable at 2.6%

Unemployment in Chile's extreme south region of Magallanes remained unchanged at 2.6% during the March-May 2008 measurement, according to the latest release from the local branch of the Chilean Statistics Institute.

In the Magallanes-Tierra del Fuego region the town of Porvenir had the highest rate 7%, followed by Puerto Natales, 4.1% and the region's capital Punta Arenas, 2.9%. According to the figures provided by Manuel Parada head of the Punta Arenas Statistics Office Magallanes labor force stands at 67.210, while those employed total 65.480 and the jobless, 1.730. Magallanes employment performance remains among the best in Chile and compares favorably with metropolitan Santiago which saw unemployment increase 0.4 percentage points to 8.3%, the highest since August 2006. The worst jobless areas in Chile are in the northern region of Arica-Parinacota with 12.3%, followed by Valparaiso, 10.1% and Araucaria, 9.5%. At Chilean national level the past quarter increase was the largest since August 2007 with 571.000 Chileans out of a job, up 1.3 percentage points since a year ago. Since December 2007 when the jobless rate was 7.2%, unemployment in Chile has been on the rise. In the March-May quarter, commerce, construction, communications and financial services drove the creation of 206.000 new jobs compared to a year ago while agriculture, hunting, fishing and industrial manufacturing employment continued to slide as it had done in April.