In parallel, the employment rate was 58.6%, with almost 1,713,000 people working in Uruguay, according to INE data.
The labor market started the second semester with a new improvement, since the rate of employment advanced almost half a percentage point and stood at 58.6% at the country level, according to data released today by the National Statistics Institute (INE), which implies that there is in the Uruguay almost 1,713,000 people working.
Given that the activity rate (people who offer their work) advanced very modestly, the increase in the employment resulted in a significant drop in the unemployment which dropped from 8.2 to 7.8% in July, the lowest rate so far this year and a rate even lower than that of a year ago. It is estimated that there are just over 144,000 people looking for work without finding it.
The improvement in the labor market data in the month of July was mainly due to the progress in the interior of the country. Indeed, there the employment increased from 57.5% to 58.1%, while the unemployment dropped from 8.8% to 8.1%.
The new labor market data at the national level are the best since 2017-2018 and occur despite the difficulties posed by the crisis in Argentina, especially for commercial activity in the Uruguayan coast. In addition, the worst problems caused by the drought.
graphic.jpeg
A new increase in informality
Despite these advances, a new increase was recorded in July in the informality, that is, the number of workers who -declaring that they are employed- indicate that they are not making the corresponding contributions to social security. This situation covered almost 22% of the employees.
Although the informality remains at relatively low levels in historical terms, the trend towards a persistent improvement in this indicator was interrupted, which turns on a yellow light in terms of the sustainability of the social security system and surely reflects a problem of competitiveness.
This is not something new in the Uruguay, in particular in some departments, but informality had been falling consistently until the last two months. The underemployment rate also increased, exceeding 9.5%. This means that almost one in 10 employed workers is looking for more work without finding it.
Source: Ambito
