Unemployment Drops in Venezuela

Caracas, May 18. -April closed with unemployment at 8.1 percent in Venezuela, 0.5 percent lower than March and 0.1 percent lower than the same month in 2010, the National Statistics Institute reported.

According to Elias Eljuri, president of the institute, the improvement in the sector responds to the recovery of the national economy, whose gross domestic product grew in the last quarter of 2010 (0.6 percent) and in the first three months of this year (4.5 percent).

Venezuela continues to have unemployment levels far below that of in 1999 (14.6 percent), when Hugo Chavez became president, Eljuri said in the capital during a press conference.

Eljuri also stressed the confirmation of an upward trend in formal jobs.

"We have an increase in the quality of jobs, because formal employment now stands at 57.7 percent of the labor force, which contrasts with the 49 percent reported 12 years ago," he said.

Since 1999, more than three million Venezuelans had access to jobs, a figure that should increase with the upcoming social program to eliminate unemployment, which will be launched by Chavez. (Prensa Latina)