Employment shifts worry Antofagasta region

Chile’s statistics agency INE said on April 29 that Antofagasta’s unemployment rate rose to 7.2% in the January-March 2026 rolling quarter, ending a run of readings below 7% in recent months. The rate was up 0.4 percentage points from a year earlier, even as the region kept one of the country’s strongest labor-market profiles by other measures. Antofagasta posted a 60.9% occupation rate — the third highest in Chile, according to regional reporting on the latest Termómetro Laboral — and the country’s lowest informality rate at 20.5%. Officials and researchers said the split reflects a market that is still relatively formal and active, but is no longer absorbing new job seekers as easily as before. ### Why did unemployment rise if employment also increased? INE said the increase in unemployment was driven by labor supply growing faster than employment. The regional labor force rose 1.4% from a year earlier, while the number of employed people increased 1.0%, leaving more people looking for work. INE said the number of unemployed people rose 7.2% over the same period. (regiones.ine.cl) The January-March bulletin put the regional labor force at 382,465 people, with 355,046 employed and 27,419 unemployed. INE also said the participation rate reached 65.6%, up 0.3 percentage points from a year earlier, while the population outside the labor force was broadly unchanged. (regiones.ine.cl) ### Which numbers still make Antofagasta look strong nationally? Antofagasta’s 20.5% informal occupation rate was the lowest in Chile in the January-March period, according to the regional bulletin and the latest Termómetro Laboral coverage. The occupation rate of 60.9% ranked third nationally, behind only Aysén and Magallanes, according to local reports citing the Observatorio Laboral de la Región de Antofagasta. (regiones.ine.cl) Chile’s national unemployment rate was 8.9% in the same January-March period, above Antofagasta’s 7.2%. INE said the national rate also rose from a year earlier, though by a smaller 0.2 percentage point increase. ### Where were jobs added — and where is the pressure showing? INE said the sectors contributing most to employment growth in Antofagasta were manufacturing, education and health. (regiones.ine.cl) Manufacturing employment rose 12.0%, education 8.7% and health activities 6.3% from a year earlier, according to the regional bulletin. (ine.gob.cl) Diario Antofagasta, citing the latest Termómetro Laboral, said the region’s mining GDP fell 7.6% and mining-related hiring dropped 4.1%, while services and education acted as buffers for the regional economy. That interpretation was attributed in local coverage to Manuel Pérez, director of the Observatorio Laboral and an academic at the Universidad Católica del Norte, who said job creation had shown signs of fatigue since the second half of 2025 and that about 5,300 additional people were seeking work over the past year. (regiones.ine.cl) ### Who is being hit harder inside the region? INE said women in Antofagasta faced a notably weaker labor market than men in the January-March period. Women’s unemployment rate reached 8.8%, up 2.1 percentage points from a year earlier, while men’s rate was 6.0%, down 0.8 percentage points. (diarioantofagasta.cl) The combined unemployment and potential labor-force rate reached 15.8% in the region, with a gender gap of 9.8 percentage points, according to INE. Women posted a 21.3% reading on that measure, versus 11.5% for men. ### What should readers watch next? INE published bulletin No. 131 for Antofagasta on April 29 and said the figures cover the January-March 2026 rolling quarter. (regiones.ine.cl) The agency’s regional labor-market page also lists related releases on women and men in the labor market and underemployment, which provide the next official checkpoints for whether hiring in mining-linked Antofagasta stabilizes or weakens further.