How the unemployment rate changed with the new DANE measurement methodology

The National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE, released the new unemployment figures in the country under a new methodology for studying this phenomenon. The measurement was made from December 2021 to February 2022 based on the methodology of the Great Integrated Household Survey (Geih) Framework 2018.

This means that the figures change since some concepts are different from the previous methodology, which was under the 2005 Framework. This update yielded data different from those expected if the way the unemployment rate is measured had not been changed.

For economists, this change made by DANE in measuring the employment and unemployment rate will not allow them to make a comparison with previous years, which means that it begins a new history of measuring these items from now on.

However, the entity has submitted a report comparing the period from December 2020 to February 2021 and December 2021 to February 2022.

Now, the data on the unemployment rate up to February 2022, according to DANE, looked like this: in the overall participation rate, it was possible to see that the percentage increased compared to the same month in 2021, from 62.5% to 64.2%.

Likewise, the unemployment rate in the country is 12.9%, the employment rate is 55.9% and underemployment was traced at 8.8% in Colombia. While for the same month in 2021 the unemployment rate was 15.5%, employment was 52.8% and underemployment was 7.4%.

This, in terms of variation from quarter to quarter, establishes that the participation rate increased by 1.7 percentage points, unemployment fell by 2.6% and consequently the employment rate increased by 3.1%.

Other figures that came out of the new DANE study, which was submitted on March 31, 2022, were that unemployment for men was 10.3%, while for women the highest figure was 16.5%.

On the other hand, the characterization of men and women by sex and age ranges that modify the figures, DANE determined an increase of 515 thousand employed men, while in women there were 1 million, most of them between 25 and 59 years old, reaching the number of 712 thousand, in men under the same age range it was 331 thousand.

The unemployment rate reveals that by February 2022 there was a decline in the figures with 496,000 who managed to occupy, which reflects a variation of -13.4% and for clarity what means 3.2 million unemployed population nationwide.

Meanwhile, in the 13 cities and metropolitan areas, 1.5 million people were estimated to be unemployed, this being a decrease of 27.7%.

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