Jamaica's Unemployment rate fell to 7.2% (STATIN 2019 survey)

According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) Jamaica's unemployment rate fell to landmark of 7.2 per cent, based on the October 2019 Labour Force Survey.

Carol Coy, STATIN's Director General, says this is 1.5 percentage points lower than the 8.7 per cent rate for the same period in 2018. She also revealed 0.6 per cent below the 7.8% recorded in the April 2019 survey.

Coy divulged that the total number of persons in jobs as at October rose by 2.4%, compared to the same period in 2018.

She was speaking during STATIN's quarterly media briefing held at The Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston on Friday, January 17, 2020.

The Director General said a breakdown of the data shows that the total number of unemployed persons as at October 2019 stood at 96,700, representing a 16.4 per cent decline over the previous year.

She noted that female unemployment rate decreased by 16,000 people to 53,400, while the total number of unemployed males decreased by 3,000 individuals to 43,300.

The Director General said the data for females represented a 2.6 percentage point decline to 8.6 per cent, while the rate for the males dipped from 6.4 per cent to six per cent.

Additionally, she noted that the unemployment rate for youth aged 14 to 24 fell from 24.9 per cent in October 2018 to 21.1 per cent last year (2019).

She revealed:

“The unemployment rate for male youth decreased by 3.6 percentage points to 18.2 per cent in October 2019 [while] the unemployment rate for female youth declined by 3.9 percentage points to 24.7 per cent.”

Coy said the number of people in jobs as at October rose by 29,200 (2.4 per cent) to 1,248,400, relative to the same period in 2018. The overall labour force increased by 10,200 people to 1,345,100.

She said that overall female employment, which rose by 18,600 people to 565,600, and this was nearly twice that of males, which went up 10,600 to 682,800.

The number of people classified as being outside the labour force, as at October 2019, totalled 741,500, which was 10,800 (1.4 per cent) fewer than the 752,300 recorded the previous year.