Global Crisis: Two important notes of unemployment in Mexico and the United States

The first note is about the unemployment in Mexico, which reached its highest point in 13 years. In a previous note we report the unemployment rate in January 2009 (5%) as the highest. But in the second quarter of the year, Mexico reached its highest level with an average unemployment rate of 5.24% of the economically active population. This is equivalent to 2 million 372 thousand jobless population. Analysts predict that unemployment will continue rising, although 5.8% and 6% in 2010.

The second note refers to an earlier note, where we talk about the concern in the United States to have a jobless recovery. This is because the unemployment in this country exceeds the rate of economic contraction. Since December 2007, when the crisis began, the unemployment rate has risen five percentage points, thus achieving 9.5%, while the economy has contracted about 2.5%. The budget director of the White House Peter Orszag and the Fed chairman Ben Bernanke explained that this disconnect between growth and employment is due to an increase in productivity, ie the companies found a way to increase the production with fewer workers.