Acccording to its DANE stats office today, Colombian urban unemployment hit 10.4% in November, up from 8.9% in the same month of 2007. The underlying national unemployment figure is 10.8%, up from the 9.4% of November 2007.
All this on the back of the 3.1% GDP growth in 3q08, which was half the expected number and is clearly slowing towards recession. It’ll be interesting to watch the people’s reaction to Uribe going forward, as alongside his well publicized fight against the FARC, his economic management has been the other pillar to his enduring success. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ is just as valid on this side of the Darien Gap.