About 340,000 workers are unemployed

Employment indicators in Ecuador showed a decline between September 2015 and September 2016.

According to the latest report by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), the number of unemployed in the country grew by 93,677 people. Unemployment in this period increased from 4.3% to 5.2%, which has been described by the INEC as a statistically significant variation.

In the same period, 341,452 stable jobs were lost. The indicator rose from 46% to 39.2%. Underemployment grew significantly, from 14.8% to 19.4%.

The Corporation of Development Studies (Cordes) believes that the figures on labor market evolution contradict the formal speech that states that the economy had entered a recovery phase in the second quarter . It indicates that the loss of 430,000 jobs means that the number of stable jobs fell by almost 10% in the last year.

For Jaime Carrera, executive secretary of the Fiscal Policy Observatory (OPF), the deterioration in labor indicators reflects the contraction of the economy. He explains that the total underemployment, which covers underemployment, part-time employment, and unremunerated work, already reaches 55%, which is worrying.