SANTIAGO, Chile. "El Mercurio", an influential Chilean newspaper carried a front page story today saying that 120,000 jobs were lost in the Chilean economy in the last year.
The story indicated that the 120,000 jobs lost involved people working under employment contracts, as opposed to self-employed workers.
Employment contracts provide workers with pension fund savings and health care insurance.
The story says that the job loss figures were based on a report by the Chilean National Institute of Statistics, referred to as INE in Chile.
111,000 jobs were lost in the private sector and 9,000 in the public sector, the story says.
On the other hand, self-employed workers grew 131,730 over the same 12 month period.
A scholar was quoted as saying that 83% of self-employed workers do not contribute money to their pension funds, do not have health care insurance and have very low income.
That means that self-employment in Chile is no match to working under an employment contract in terms of income and social security.
The INE report was published yesterday, but it only provided percentage unemployment figures. It says that unemployment grew 0.5% over the last 12 months and that it jumped to 6.4% in the December 2016-February 2017 quarter, the highest for the same period in the last 6 years, says the paper.
The fact that an influential newspaper says that 120,000 jobs were lost in one year lends a lot of credibility to the story, in what seems to be a scoop for the paper.
This story, and similar ones (See our stories "Chile's 2016 GDP growth of 1.6% lowest since 2009" and "Chilean construction industry takes a dive") over the last few days paint a grim picture of the Chilean economy in 2017, a year in which a presidential election is scheduled for November 19.
The story indicated that the 120,000 jobs lost involved people working under employment contracts, as opposed to self-employed workers.
Employment contracts provide workers with pension fund savings and health care insurance.
The story says that the job loss figures were based on a report by the Chilean National Institute of Statistics, referred to as INE in Chile.
111,000 jobs were lost in the private sector and 9,000 in the public sector, the story says.
On the other hand, self-employed workers grew 131,730 over the same 12 month period.
A scholar was quoted as saying that 83% of self-employed workers do not contribute money to their pension funds, do not have health care insurance and have very low income.
That means that self-employment in Chile is no match to working under an employment contract in terms of income and social security.
The INE report was published yesterday, but it only provided percentage unemployment figures. It says that unemployment grew 0.5% over the last 12 months and that it jumped to 6.4% in the December 2016-February 2017 quarter, the highest for the same period in the last 6 years, says the paper.
The fact that an influential newspaper says that 120,000 jobs were lost in one year lends a lot of credibility to the story, in what seems to be a scoop for the paper.
This story, and similar ones (See our stories "Chile's 2016 GDP growth of 1.6% lowest since 2009" and "Chilean construction industry takes a dive") over the last few days paint a grim picture of the Chilean economy in 2017, a year in which a presidential election is scheduled for November 19.
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