S.I.B. Director Says More than Only 3% is Unemployed

While Belize’s unemployment rate remains officially reported at three percent or less, the real number of unemployed individuals is significantly higher. Today, Diana Trejo, Director General of the Statistical Institute of Belize, explained that this low figure stems from the fact that many people who are not working are not actively seeking employment.

 

Diana Trejo, Director General, S.I.B.

“The labor market is tight at this time and that is reflected in our data. We had an all-time low of two point eight percent unemployment last year, I believe it was and that was pretty much reflected in the experiences of employers. Employers are having a hard time recruiting enough people to fill the vacancies that they have. The agricultural sector was suffering from a shortage of labor and  just generally, this goes along with what we are seeing in our data. Now, one important thing to note is that not everyone who can be a part of the labor force is actually in the labor force. Only about fifty-five percent of persons who are of that working age of fourteen and above actually participate in the labor force. So we have a very large chunk of our population, working age population, who are not at all participating in the labor force. At one point, we had a sizable number of persons who we classified as the potential labor force because they’re not working, they’re available, but they’re not looking.”