Minister claims succes ... jobless rate falls again to official 10.3% in 2007

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): Labor and Social Security Minister José Ramón Rivero claimed success for the government's drive to bring down unemployment, claiming the number of jobs had risen in all sectors of the economy.  Speaking on state television channel VTV on Monday, Rivero said recent years had seen economic growth, the purchasing power of the people had risen and employment had increased. "Venezuela continues functioning better than ever," he said.

Rivero conceded the jobless rate rose after President Hugo Chávez took power in 1999 and went on increasing up to 2003, but blamed this on "irresponsible actions by some sectors of the opposition." A new phase had begun in 2004 with an economic recovery that had turned out to be "real, systematic and structural."


The minister's statement coincided with publication by the opposition-aligned El Nacional, of a report claiming the number of employees in the state sector had increased by 40.6 percent since 2003, to 1,975,595 last year. Over the same period, state employees' incomes had risen 198 percent, the report added.

On the same measure, employment in the private sector rose by 11 percent, while pay increased by 85.9 percent. Accumulated inflation had come out at 95.2 percent in the private one during 2003-07.
In real terms after discounting inflation, pay rose in the state sector by 52.5 percent during the four-year period, but fell by 4.9 percent during the same time.

The National Statistics Institute (INE) said the unemployment rate fell last year to 10.3 percent of the workforce, from 12.9 percent in 2006. The decline continued in January, when the rate was 9.2 percent.

Unemployment used to be regarded as one of the government's biggest headaches, a cause not only of poverty but also crime, and remains a problem in a country with a growing and ever younger population.

Unofficial estimates suggest at least half of the population is aged 25 years or less and that the downward trend is continuing. Skeptics warn that these people will need jobs and that the state can only do so much.