Costa Rica’s official unemployment rate remained essentially stagnant during the fourth quarter of 2015 at 9.6 percent compared to 9.7 percent a year earlier, according to the latest report by Costa Rica’s National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC), released Thursday morning.

According to official statistics, 215,000 people were unemployed during the fourth quarter of 2015, compared to 220,000 during the fourth quarter of the previous year, a figure within the margin of error and statistically insignificant, according to experts.

The figure only includes those who are able to work and who remained unemployed despite having made an active effort to find employment in the previous four weeks prior to the official survey.

Costa Rica’s unemployment rate has ranged between 9.6% and 10.9% since 2011, essentially stagnant for nearly six years.

 

Experts blame Costa Rica’s stagnant unemployment rate for surge in suicides

According to information released in January, Costa Rica now ranks number two in Central America – behind only El Salvador – in terms of annual suicides, according to official statistics by the Ministry of Health, which now deems suicide as a public health concern.

Despite Costa Ricans’ reputation for a laid-back approach to life, epitomized in the country’s famous phrase of “pura vida,” the country’s suicide rate has increased an astonishing 660 percent since 1999, skyrocketing from an average 60 suicides annually to some 400 in 2014, the latest statistic available.

Yesenia Brenes from the University of Costa Rica (UCR)’s School of Economics told CRHoy.com in January that a significant “positive relationship” between unemployment and suicide is of particular concern.