COSTA RICA: Costa Rica’s unemployment rate remained at 9.5% at the end of the last quarter of 2016 and an annual increase was recorded of nearly 2% in informal employment. Highlights of the Fourth Quarter Continuous Employment Survey 2016 from a statement issued by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC) – National Institute of Statistics and Census: The employment rate reached 54.3% in the fourth quarter of 2016, a figure which has remained the same in respect to the same quarter the previous year.
Unemployment in the national population did not show significant statistical changes, standing at 9.5% in fourth quarter of 2016. The percentage of informal employment increased by 1.7 pp year on year due to increased independents. For the fourth quarter of 2016, the domestic employed population was 2.06 million people, with an occupancy rate that reached 54.3%, The employment rate for the fourth quarter of 2016 was 69.0 for men and 39.5 for women.
