Colombia’s unemployment rate grew to 9.4% in 2017, making it the country with the highest unemployment rate in Latin America after Venezuela.
Unemployment went up 0.2 points from 9.2%, according to the country’s statistics agency, DANE.
Another 8.5% of the population was underemployed in the last quarter of 2017. This was 9% during the same period the year before.
The highest unemployment rate was registered in the west Colombian city of Quibdo, Choco, where 16.1% of the labor force was without a job.
Coastal city Santa Marta marked the country’s lowest unemployment rate with 8%.
Colombia traditionally has one of Latin America’s highest unemployment rates.
It has, however, been overtaken by Venezuela that was hit by an economic crisis due to dropping commodity prices in 2014.
While unemployment in Colombia went from 9.6% to 9.4% between 2013 and 2017, Venezuela saw its unemployment skyrocket from 7.5% to 24.3%.