December unemployment rate in Santiago highest since 2006

SANTIAGO.-  In December of last year, the unemployment rate for the Greater Santiago area reached 9.7%, equivalent to 274,600 unemployed individuals, according to the most recent “Greater Santiago Employment and Unemployment Poll” performed by the Business and Economics Department of the Universidad de Chile.

The study for the month of December 2008 indicated that the unemployment rate was 0.8 percentage points higher that the same figure registered during the same period of the previous year (8.9%).  Furthermore, the figure for the last month of last year was the highest reported since June of 2006.

“The drop in employment over the last twelve months seems to confirm the deterioration of the labor market as indicated by a higher rate of unemployment”, states the poll.