Inflation Up by 3.9% in First 5 Months of 2024

Cost of living was up almost four percent in the first five months of this year, compared to the same period in 2023. But it wasn’t as if you didn’t know it. The comments on the talk shows and social media reflect the impact of the prices of grocery items on the pocket. Today, the Statistical Institute of Belize confirmed those comments and gave a breakdown of those figures. News Five’s Marion Ali reports.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

The information coming out of the Statistical Institute of Belize today shows that the cost of living for the first five months of this year was up by almost four percent, when compared to the same period last year. Statistician, Melvin Perez provides some details.

 

Melvin Perez, Statistician, S.I.B.

“Prices increased by 3.9% for the first five months of 2024 when compared to the same period of the year 2023. The main contributor to the overall cumulative inflation rate was the food and non-alcoholic beverages category. Higher prices were seen for food items, restaurant services, home rental costs, personal hygiene products, household cleaning and maintenance products, cultural services, alcoholic beverages and medicine products.”

 

 

The Director General of the institute, Diana Castillo-Trejo explained that that the problem is not unique or confined to Belize.

 

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

“Your cost of living has to do with how high prices are, like how high in general the level of prices are while your inflation rate talks about whether it’s going up or down and how fast it’s moving. So what we reported today was the inflation rate. What we are seeing in terms of the general trend is that last year there were some very high rates of inflation. It is slowing a bit now, but price levels still remain considerably higher than they were a few years ago because of this high level of inflation that we have been seeing for the past couple of years. And we have been seeing Food prices continue to rise. It is one of the items for which inflation is persistent. And I think that this is not unique to Belize. This is something that countries around the world are facing. However, on the other hand, things like fuel, the rise in prices in fuel has been slowing down and to a certain extent even reversing a bit. And likewise for things like butane where we’ve been seeing small drops in the price there.”

 

Annia Mejia shared statistics on a labour force survey conducted in April. That exercise revealed that three thousand households were randomly selected across Belize and interviewed on the status of their employment.

 

Annia Mejia, Statistical Officer, S.I.B.

“In April 2024, the national population was estimated at 409,357 persons. The working age population is estimated at 298,464 persons or 72.9% of the national population. The labour force is comprised of 57.4% of the working age population. The unemployed population makes up 3% of the labour force, while the employed population makes up 97% of the labour force. Within the employed population, 2.5 % of the employed persons makes up the under-employed population.”

 

The unemployment rate of three percent, according to Diana Castillo-Trejo, is higher than it was a year ago. But many people disagree with this figure that the unemployment rate is so low, so we asked Trejo to explain how they work that out.

 

Diana Castillo-Trejo

“The unemployment rate actually, if you compared to last April, it is up slightly. We have seen a small increase in the number of unemployed, persons.  And if you look at the big picture of what we presented today we also include a lot of information on persons who are not in the labor force. Which that is about 120,000 plus persons who are of working age, but they are not active in the labor force. And of those, about 5,000 are what we would say, they can easily be moved into the labor force. Maybe they are not looking for work right now, but they are available. So we do also report on that. It’s just that the classification is a little bit different because the definition of unemployment includes persons who are actively seeking employment. And actively seeking is a very loose term. It’s a very loose term. If someone has even asked around does anyone know of a job that counts as actively seeking.”

 

The stats also indicate that total imports for the first five months stood at one point two billion dollars, which represented a fourteen percent increase. Total exports were a hundred and sixty-five point six million dollars, or four-point six percent higher.

 

On tourism, Statistical Officer, Jacqueline Sabal presented on the Tourism Satellite Account 2019, which involves data about the supply and demand of tourism-related goods and services and summarizes the contribution tourism makes to production and employment.

 

Jacqueline Sabal, Statistical Officer, S.I.B

“For the year 2019, we have a direct share in tourism industries, Gross Value Added at $343.1 million, the direct share in other industries – $142.2 million, the direct share in taxes less subsidies – $73.6 million, which brings us to a total tourism direct Gross Domestic Product at $558.9 million. Internal tourism consumption totalled $1.1 billion, the tourism direct Gross Domestic Product stood at 11.8% of total G.D.P., the number of establishments in the tourism industry was 2,244, the number of persons employed in the tourism industry was 24,999, and the tourism industry was the second largest contributor to G.D.P. and the largest foreign exchange earner during that year.”

 

In that same year, the total number of persons employed in the tourism industry was right around twenty-five thousand. Marion Ali for News Five.