MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Indec reports Argentina's unemployment in 3Q at 7.1%

The Indec figures showed some interannual progress regarding unemployment

Unemployment in Argentina in the third quarter of 2022 was 7.1%, according to a National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec) report released Wednesday.

Of a total of 29.2 million people in 31 urban areas, 13.9 million (47.6%) make up the economically active population (employed or available for work) -referred to as PEA for its acronym in Spanish- and 15.3 million (52.4%) belong to the inactive population.

Among PEA, 12.9 million people have at least one occupation and 1 million people are without an occupation but are actively looking for work, the report pointed out.

Wednesday's figures meant an interannual improvement from the 8.2% reported for the same period of 2021. Unemployment was also higher among women than among men. For the population over 14 years of age, the rate was 7.8% for women and 6.5% for men.

When only PEA people are considered, unemployment stood at 11%, while other employed persons seeking work and other available persons not seeking work together reached 11.2% of the EAP.

Consequently, the pressure on the labor market, made up of the universe of unemployed, underemployed, employed persons seeking employment, and available employed persons not seeking employment, reached 29.3% of the PEA.

Also according to Indec data, Argentina's economic activity went up 4.5% year-on-year in October, driven by wholesale and retail trade, the manufacturing industry, the hotel and restaurant sector, and mining and quarrying exploration.

The Indec report entailed a 0.3% decrease from September but an overall 6.1% interannual progress. Activity at hotels and restaurants went up 27.2%, followed by Mining and quarrying 12.5%; Transportation and Communications 6.1%; Wholesale, Retail, and Repairs 5.3%; Manufacturing Industry 3.8%.

On the other hand, Fishing went down 29.6%, followed by Financial Intermediation (-1.8%).