The unemployment rate in Trinidad and Tobago fell from 4.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 3.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2013.

This is the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded in Trinidad and Tobago, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) said as it released the Labour Force bulletin for the first quarter of 2013. The information contained in this bulletin is based on data collected in the Continuous Sample Survey of Population conducted between January and March 2013, the CSO said.

From a gender perspective, the unemployment rate for women decreased from 6.6 per cent to 4.7 per cent, while the rate for men decreased from 4.6 per cent to 3.0 per cent.

The decline in the unemployment rate was reported in specific industries, including “financing, insurance, real estate and business services”, “wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels” and “transport, storage and communication”.

The labour force of Trinidad and Tobago registered 635,100 people at the end of the first quarter of 2013. “This represented an increase of 5,400 or 0.8 per cent when compared to the fourth quarter [of] 2012. From a gender perspective, this increase in the labour force was reflected among males which rose by 0.1 per cent, and women which increased by 1.9 per cent when compared with the previous quarter,” the CSO said.