Unemployment in Costa Rica was 17.3% in the moving quarter from February to April 2021, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Inec).
This represents a small decrease (1.4 percentage points) compared to the moving quarter from January to March.
Compared to the same quarter of last year, unemployment in Costa Rica has increased by 1.6 percentage points. Women continue to have a higher unemployment rate than men — 23.8% and 12.9%, respectively.
The percentage of employed people with respect to the working-age population was 50.0%. Costa Rica’s employed population was calculated at 2.02 million people.
“The labor force shows an increase in unemployed people while the employed population remains unchanged with respect to the same period in 2020,” INEC says, noting 43,000 more unemployed people compared to last year.
Meanwhile, the INEC calculated the underemployment rate — the percentage of employed people who work fewer than 40 hours a week and want to work more hours — at 15.4%, unchanged from last year.
The working-age population outside the workforce was estimated at 1.6 million people, a statistically insignificant change compared to last year.
Unemployment in Costa Rica had reached 12% in March 2020, already one of the highest levels recorded in the country until then, but it soared to 24% due to the impact of the pandemic in the moving quarter from May to July 2020.
