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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
According to the 1992 census, the Chilean population
totaled
13,348,401 million in that year. The average annual rate
of
population growth in the 1982-92 period was 1.6 percent, a
relatively low rate in the context of Latin America. Chile
and
Argentina are the two countries with the lowest rates of
population
growth in South America
(see Current
Demographic Profile
, ch. 2).
Chile is a highly urbanized country. According to
estimates for
1991, about 85 percent of the population resides in urban
areas. A
large fraction of the population is in the metropolitan
area, which
includes the capital city, Santiago. The population share
of this
region was estimated at slightly more than 39 percent in
1992,
which is one percentage point higher than the 1982 share.
These
figures indicate that the relative growth of the
metropolitan area
has slowed down compared with the 1970-80 decade, when the
ratio
climbed to 38.1 percent in 1982 from 35.4 percent in 1970
(see Urban
Areas
, ch. 2).
With a lower rate of population growth, Chile's
"working-age"
population, which includes all those individuals above
fifteen and
below sixty-five years of age, represented 64 percent of
the total
population in 1992. The labor force participation rate, or
the
ratio of those in the labor force over the "working-age"
population, was 52.6 percent in March 1992. Thus, 36.8
percent of
the total population was working or seeking a job (see
table 7,
Appendix). The rate of unemployment has declined steadily
throughout the period (see
table 8, Appendix). The overall
rate of
growth in employment for the 1987-91 period was about 3
percent per
year. The rate was substantially higher from 1987 to 1989
(5
percent), the period of fast recovery after the debt
crisis. It is
possible that the uncertainty regarding the final reforms
on the
labor legislation might have delayed employment creation,
but there
were other important factors, such as an increase in the
interest
rate. The most dynamic sectors during the 1987-89 period
were
construction and industry, with average rates of
employment growth
of 20 percent and 11 percent per year, respectively.
After years of high unemployment, in the 1990s the
trend began
to change. By late 1993 the rate of unemployment had
plunged to 4.9
percent, a rate significantly lower that that of the rest
of Latin
America, and one of the lowest in Chile's modern history.
Interestingly, this drastic reduction in unemployment has
taken
place at the same time as real wages have increased
significantly.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America
has
estimated that average real wages increased by 13.7
percent between
1990 and 1993. This change in employment conditions has
been the
direct result of the emphasis that Chile's economic model
has
placed on the development of employment-intensive
industries. The
increase in employment has been so impressive that a
number of
analysts have argued that Chile may be running into a
period of
labor shortages
(see The
Labor Force and Income Levels
, ch. 2).
Data as of March 1994
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