The latest official unemployment report shows that 4% of the economically active population does not have a job. This rate corresponds to the month of April 2023 and is lower than a year and two ago.

Thus, unemployment was decreasing in April: it was 5.1% in 2021, 4.7% in 2022, and now 4%, according to data from the National Institute for Statistics and Population Censuses (INEC), which elaborates this indicator on the basis of the National Survey on employment, unemployment and underemployment. There are no data for April 2020, because due to the pandemic and closure, field activities of the survey were suspended on March 16 of that year, and later it was conducted by telephone, and thus the data for May June, when unemployment rose to 13.3%.

Report to the nation: Guillermo Lasso evaluates his two years in government with these figures

Current unemployment of 4% covers 5.4% unemployment in urban areas and 1.4% in rural areas. In both cases, it is a reduction compared to April last year. In the urban population it is half a percentage point less, and in rural areas the decrease is 1%.

In the case of unemployment for women, it also decreases from 5.8% to 4.9%, and for men from 3.9% to 3.4%.

The appropriate employment rate improved by more than three points and now stands at 35.2% from 32.5% in April 2022.

Underemployment fell from 23.9% to 19.9%.

INEC’s monthly report summarizes that in April at the national level: of the total population of the country, 71.2% were able to work, aged 15 and over. 65.4% of the working-age population was economically active. And of the economically active population, 96% had a job.

More than 77,000 new associates were registered at IESS between April 2022 and April 2023.

This is how it was quantified that in April: