Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke has labelled, as “encouraging”, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica’s (STATIN) report this morning (October 20) that the unemployment rate has fallen to 8.5 per cent.

“This is a big improvement from the unemployment rate of 12.6 per cent last year July,” Clarke said in a post on Twitter.

“There is still some way to go to the record pre pandemic unemployment rate of 7.1 per cent, but today’s report is very encouraging news.”

During STATIN’s quarterly press conference this morning, the institute’s director general, Carol Coy said, based on the findings of the July 2021 labour survey, it was estimated that 1.215 million persons were in the employed labour force.

“This was 93,400 more, or 8.3 per cent more when compared to July 2020,” Coy said.

The number of employed males increased by 55,700 or nine per cent. Employed females increased by 37,700, or 7.5 per cent.

By industry, the combined increase in the number of persons employed in construction and real estate and other business services, accounted for over 50 per cent of the increase in the employed labour force.

There were 118,300 persons employed in the construction industry, an increase of 26,100 or 28.3 per cent. Males accounted for 25,900 of the increase.

There were 115,100 persons employed in real estate and other business services, an increase of 21,500 or 23 per cent. Women accounted for the largest increase in this industry with 11,900 persons or 25.4 per cent.

Other industry groups with notable increases were Accommodation and Food Service Activity, which employed 17,800 more; ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing’ with 6,200 more; and the ‘Wholesale & Retail Trade, Repair of Motor Vehicles and Motorcycles’ group which employed 5,500 more persons.

By occupation groups, ‘Elementary Occupations’ and ‘Service Workers and Shop and Market Sales Workers’ accounted for more than 50 per cent of the increase with 25,200 and 24,200 individuals added to their respective work forces.

There were 112,500 unemployed persons in Jamaica, a decline of 30.4 per cent, or 49,200 persons compared to July 2020.

The unemployment rate for women stood at 6.3 per cent for males and 11.1 per cent for women.

Among youths age 14 to 24, unemployment stood at 23.9 per cent, down from 30.3 per cent in July 2020.

For young males, unemployment was at 18.4 per cent while, for young females, the rate stood at 30.8 per cent.

There were 767,500 or 5.2 per cent fewer persons outside the labour than in 2020.

These individuals are neither employed nor unemployed.

Persons are considered employed if they are engaged in economic activity for at least one hour in the reference week which, for the July 2021 survey, was June 20 to 26.