President Juan Manuel Santos said that the government will not rest until unemployment is in the single digits, according to a report published on the government website Monday.
At the end of the round of dialogues held Monday at the Ministry of Justice and the Interior, the president said that despite favorable figures for the last trimester the government must continue to make reduction of unemployment a top priority.
According to figures from the national statistics institute DANE, unemployment was reduced by over a percentage point in January 2011 compared with the same period in 2010. Figures dropped from 14.6% to 13.5% for the month of January. Santos also reported the creation of 566,000 jobs, and the highest level of employment in the last decade.
The president said, “It’s true that the tendency is good, but the net results are still not satisfactory, because we will not rest until the moment we see unemployment in the single digits, as we have stated as a government priority for the past six months.”
Santos added the generation of formal employment is a priority of the national government: “[This] is another of our objectives: that the employment which is produced, which grows, will be formal employment.” According to the figures, in the November-January trimester, salaried employment grew 5.9%, which, according to the president, demonstrates that this goal is being achieved.