Aspects of Unemployment and Informality in Colombia in a Comparison with other Countries.

Unemployment and Informality.

The unemployment rate for april according to the official source of information was 10.6%, lower than the march rate of 11.3% and the rate for the february april quarter which was 11.2%.

The working population reached 22.865.000 in april and the number of unemployed reached 2.724.000. The first mentioned grew by 123.000 compared to the same month of the previous year and the latter decreased by 8.000 in the same period.

Regarding the population with work already mentioned, when observing by economic sectors, those that group the most workers are commerce with 3.992.000 and agriculture 3.156.000. They are followed by public administration with 2.849.000 and then industry with 2.452.000.

Of the total number of workers mentioned of 22.865.000, 10.097.000 are classified as employees and 9.299.000 are self employed. At the same time, of this total number of workers, 12.760.000 are non formal employment and the rest, that is, 10.105.000, are in formal work. That is, 55.8% of Colombian workers are non formal and 44.2% are formal workers.

Furthermore, considering 13 main cities in the country, informality is 41.6% while in rural areas it is 84.5%.

As mentioned at the beginning of this note, unemployment in the february april quarter reached 11.2% for the national total, but by city the ones with the highest unemployment in the quarter are Quibdó 28.6%, Riohacha 20.1%, Florencia 17.1%, Ibagué 15.2% and Popayan 14.1%. The cities that register the lowest unemployment are Bogotá 10.1%, Medellín 10.1% and Bucaramanga 9.8%.

Also, informality according to the official source, which is 55.8% for the national total in april, becomes 56.3% in the february april quarter and there the main cities with informality are Sincelejo 69.6%, Valledupar 60.1%, Cúcuta 59.9% Riohacha 59.6 % and Montería 59.1%. But the cities with the least informality are Bogotá 33.1%, Manizales 34.7%, Medellín 39.1%, Pereira 39.4% and Tunja 39.8%.

From all the above, some observations are the following. Unemployment of 10.6% is high according to international organizations such as the World Bank and the OECD, compared to the average for Latin America of 6.2%, the European Union 5.9% and the United States 3.9%. Colombia exceed México in unemployment (2.8%), Bolivia 3.6%, Ecuador 3.8%, Argentina 6.2%, Perú 6.8% and Chile 8.6%.

Also note that in Colombia the sectors that most employ the population to work are commerce and agriculture, which is why public policy must focus on promoting, together with the private sector, employment and the formalization of these sectors since, as mentioned before, informality is greater in rural areas than in cities.

Special attention is required by the industry that has been in the country for more than 12 months with drops in the production of goods and whose job creation and reactivation is required with a greater boost to private investment in all the subsectors that comprise it.

Another aspect is Colombia's informality of 55.8%; it is high and higher, as mentioned by international organizations, than that of Chile 28%, Mexico 54%, Uruguay 21%, Brazil 38% and Argentina 48%. But Colombia's informality is also higher than that of the European Union where labor informality is only 17%, the United States 6.3%, Norway 6.5%, Luxembourg 9.4%, Germany 9.6%, Japan 10%, France 12.4% and Italy 22.5. %. Of the OECD countries, Colombia has the greatest informality.

Only Colombian informality is lower than that of countries such as Bolivia 80%, Ecuador 69%, Paraguay 68%, Egypt, Peru and Thailand which exceed 65%, the same as in India.

Additionally, at the level of Colombian cities, Bogotá and Medellín have fewer unemployment and informality problems, as mentioned above, than other cities such as Quibdó, Sincelejo, Riohacha, Valledupar, Florencia, Ibagué, Cúcuta and Montería. The public policy to generate formal jobs at the level of decentralized regions and focused on their respective cities is a task to be implemented together with the private sector. Furthermore, the generation of jobs and formal jobs in those cities and regions would reduce the social and income inequality that is high among the country's population.

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Food Insecurity in Colombian Households

According to the household quality of life survey carried out by the country's official statistics entity, food insecurity in households prevails in 26.1% of them for the year 2.023 with a decrease from 28.1% in the year 2.022.  This food insecurity is a measurement designed by the FAO, through surveys on access to food in terms of quality and quantity.

When observing the results by department of the country, those with the greatest food insecurity are Guajira 50.1%, Sucre 44.8%, Vichada 39.7%, Magdalena 39%, Guaviare 36.7% and Atlántico 35.8%. On the contrary, the departments with the least food insecurity are Caquetá 13.7%, Caldas 14.8%, Boyacá 16.7%, Risaralda 17.1%, Putumayo 18%, Bogotá 21.2% and Antioquia 21.6%.

It is also presented that the probability of experiencing food insecurity is higher, 38.6%, in households with housing deficits than in households with homes without deficiencies (20.7%).

At the same time, the food insecurity indicator also reduces in households that benefit from subsidies such as families in action or older adults, going from 39.1% of non beneficiaries to 23.2% of targeted households.

Furthermore, food insecurity shows that when the head of the household is not affiliated with the health system it reaches 41.1% of the households, but when he is affiliated with the subsidized regime it drops to 36.3% and even more so when he is affiliated with the contributory regime he falls to 14.3%.

Likewise, food insecurity experiences that when the head of the household expresses the perception of being poor, it reaches 41.7% of households, while if the perception of the head of the household is of being non poor, it drops to 12.1%.

In a measurement carried out by the official statistics entity regarding food insecurity for the year 2.023, the Colombian population in this condition was 14.6 million people, 28.4% of the total.

Food insecurity leads to the requirement to focus public policy at the national and departmental levels of government in the territories to promote and incentivize subsidies, the supply of housing and, above all, the sources of generation and formalization of jobs by the private sector.

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Today ( tuesday 4) in terms of world markets, stock markets are falling due to the presentation of lower than expected results of economic activity in the United States. Also, in Europe they are waiting for a possible cut in the interest rate of the European Central Bank at the next meeting.

The price of oil falls due to the decision of OPEC+ to reduce the cut in the supply of barrels to the market at the end of the year, which causes fears about an excess of supply for the time. Also due to the uncertainty of lower economic activity in China and the United States. WTI and BRENT are trading at 73.1 and 77.3 dollars per barrel respectively.

In Colombia, the stock market begins the day with an increase of 0.1% compared to last friday and after the holiday monday. The peso is devalued to 3.891 per dollar compared to the TRM for today of 3.860.9.