Kirchner also said that the year would close with unemployment down to 13%. He said the official figure for the fourth quarter (not yet released by Indec) would be 13.2%, down from 14.8% in the third quarter. The jobless rate had peaked at 21.5% in May 2002. Though the president did not spell it out, the figures he quoted consider as employed the beneficiaries of the 'heads of households' subsidy. If they are counted as unemployed the third-quarter rate rises above 18%.
BRAZIL | Downturn in industrial output. After a stagnant September, in October industrial output shrank by 0.4% to a level 2.7% above that of a year earlier. Accumulated production in the first 10 months of the year is up 8.3% on the comparable period of 2003. The national industrialists' confederation, CNI, reports that utilisation of installed capacity in October reached 84%, an all-time high.
Worth noting: industrial employment in São Paulo rose by 0.6% in October, taking the accumulated increase in the first 10 months to just under 4%.
BRAZIL | Farm trade boom. Earnings from exports of agricultural products in the first 11 months of the year totalled US$36bn, 29.2% more than in the same period of last year and the most on record for both that period and any whole year since records began in 1989. The 11-month total was almost 18% higher than that of all 2003, the previous annual record.
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