Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Tuesday that over 1.5 million jobs have been created in the last 20 months, according to a statement on the presidential website.
In the statement, President Santos said, “In the past 20 months we have achieved the creation of 1,524,000 new posts,” a figure which represents 60% of the 2.5 million target over his four-year term in office.
The head of state also highlighted the Law of First Employment which offers tax breaks to companies that hire people entering the work force for the first time, helping over 400,000 young people find jobs and 290,000 companies formalize labor practices.
President Santos cited the March unemployment rate of 10.4%, released by the national statistics agency, DANE and reiterated the government’s promise to reduce unemployment to single digits.