Jamaica’s unemployment rate has climbed as the labour market continues to feel the effects of Hurricane Melissa.
New figures from the Statistical Institute of Jamaica, STATIN, show the rate rose to 3.7 percent in April.
That’s up from 3.3 percent a year earlier.
Chevon Campbell, has the details.
The April Labour Force Survey shows the number of unemployed Jamaicans rose to 55,000, up from 50,000 in April last year.
The increase was felt by both men and women.
The male unemployment rate was 2.7 percent, while the female rate was almost twice as high, at 4.9 percent.
Young people continue to face the toughest road.
The youth unemployment rate stood at 11.7 percent, with the number of unemployed youth rising to 21,000, from 19,600.
At the same time, fewer Jamaicans were working.
The number of employed people fell by 25,700, to just over 1.4 million.
It’s a decline of 1.8 percent compared with April last year.
Employment among men slipped by 1.1 percent, to 761,000.
Among women, it fell more sharply, down 2.5 percent, to nearly 658,000. Employed youth saw the steepest drop of all, falling 9.1 percent, to nearly 159,000.
The figures also point to more people stepping away from the job market altogether.
The labour force participation rate slipped to 68.4 percent, from 69.3 percent a year earlier.
And the number of people outside the labour force grew by 20,500, to nearly 682,000, with women accounting for the larger share of that increase.
STATIN says the April survey again used a shortened questionnaire in parts of the western parishes of St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, St. James, Hanover and Trelawny.
These are areas still recovering from Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall on October 28th last year.
It says the abridged survey allowed it to keep estimating core labour market indicators, but that some of the usual measures could not be produced for the quarter.
Even with the rise, the unemployment rate remains low by historical standards, having hovered near record lows in recent years.
