Formal employment: 130,000 more jobs were created in January than in a similar month of 2020

In January of this year, the total formal jobs (public and private sector) had an increase of 6.5% (329,000 new jobs) compared to the same month of 2021 and an expansion of 2.5% (130,000 new jobs) if compared to 2020, as reported by the Central Reserve Bank of Peru (BCRP) with data from the electronic spreadsheet.

If we disaggregate the data, private employment in January increased 7.8% (279,000) compared to the similar figure in 2021 and by 1.0% (39,000) compared to 2020. Meanwhile, jobs in the public sector grew by 3 .3% (51,000) compared to last year and 6.1% (91,000) when compared to January 2020.

“Since August, formal jobs have exceeded pre-pandemic levels and, in the case of jobs created by the private sector, these have exceeded pre-pandemic levels since September of last year,” said Adrián Armas, central manager. of Economic Studies of the BCRP during the presentation of the monetary program of March 2022.

According to the BCRP report, employment in Lima during the first month of the year had an increase of 5.8% (175,000) compared to January 2021, however, when compared to 2020, there is a drop of 0.7%, which is equivalent to about 23,000 fewer jobs in the capital.

Regarding jobs in the rest of Peru, an increase of 6.2% (128,000) was reported compared to January 2021. If compared to 2020, there is an increase of 6.1% (126,000).

private employment

The increase in jobs in the formal private sector was driven by the services (9.3%), mining (8.9%) and agricultural (7.9%).

“Just as was registered in December, this pattern of a greater increase in jobs in the services sector continued, where in January 150,000 private jobs were created in the services sector and this evolution of the last months is consistent with a greater recovery of these sectors of intensive services in human contact given this context of lesser impact of the pandemicArms added.