Economy
With the increased number of informal workers and the surge of unemployment rate, 49.2 percent of the economically active population is made up of people who lost their jobs or work in precarious conditions.

According to data of the National Statistics Institute (INE), 6,343,196 people out of the 12,892,478 people, which constitute the economically active population, were unemployed or worked in the informal sector of the economy at the end of May.

The official statistics agency highlights that unemployed totaled 998.920 people in May. As a result, unemployment rate stood at 7.7 percent, the first increase of the rate in the last six years.

The number of unemployed increased by 111,202 people between May 2008 and May 2009, according to a year-to-year comparison reported by INE.

One of the factors that prevented a larger increase of the unemployment rate was the inclusion of more inexperienced people to the labor market. The monthly report of INE says that the percentage of those people seeking a job for the first time but did not manage to do so fell from 0.6 percent to 0.5 percent in the last year. This shows that first-time workers had a greater access to the labor market.

A growing informal sector
On the other hand, informal workers totaled 5,344,276 people, that is, 44.9 percent of employed people. Thus, the amount of informal workers rose by 226,135 people, according the reports of the government's agency. The gradual reduction of the precarious labor market, which is formed by people working in the informal economy, had been highlighted by the government as one of its achievements. In fact, there had not been increases in the informal sector of the economy since the oil strike in 2003.

Official data show that the labor market is beginning to adjust to the economic crisis.

The behavior of the work force reported by INE does not show an above average growth in the number of people seeking to enter a labor market with small job creation.

The labor market has maintained a year-to-year 2.1 percent increase due to natural population growth. Therefore, the labor data mean a rearrangement in a context characterized by less favorable conditions than those prevailing a year ago.

Times of crisis
It is worth remembering that the decline in oil prices forced the government to impose a budget cut, based on a recalculation of the average price of oil in 2009. After the adjustment, financial authorities estimated that the average price of oil would be USD 40, and according to the latest official report, year-to-date crude oil average totaled USD 45.73. The lowest contribution of oil revenues to the Venezuelan economy has directly impacted the level of demand, which has halved in the last year, according to data of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas

Suhelis Tejero Puntes
EL UNIVERSAL