MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Unemployment keeps dropping in Uruguay

The trend keeps dropping as new people join the labor market

Unemployment in Uruguay fell yet again last month to stand at 7.8%, according to a report released Tuesday in Montevideo by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Thus, the drop from June's figures was 0.4% for a total of some 144,400 jobless people in the South American country from 152,500 the month before.

 July's unemployment data marked an uninterrupted improvement after June's 8.2%, May's 8.7%, and April's 8.8%. According to the same report, the employment rate was 58.6%, a 0.4% increase from June.

Outside Montevideo, the unemployment rate went from 8,8% in June to 8.1% in July, while in the country's capital, the variation was from 7.3% to 7.2% in the same period.

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The INE report also showed over 12,000 people entered the labor market, which means that as of July 2023, there are 1,712,700 employed people in Uruguay. In addition, there were 1,857,000 people employed in July, compared to 1,700,000 in June.

The document also highlights that 9.6% of Uruguayans are underemployed, while informal (non-registered) labor would account for 21.9% of workers.

“In July 2023 for the total country the activity rate stood at 63.5%, the employment rate at 58.6% and the unemployment rate at 7.8%,” the INE document read.

The activity rate remained almost unchanged with respect to June when it was 63.4%, while the employment rate increased slightly in July with respect to 58.2% in the sixth month of the year.