Weekly Report - 25 August 2016 (WR-16-33)

ARGENTINA | Indec releases new unemployment figures. Argentina’s national statistics institute (Indec) reported on 23 August that the national unemployment rate in the second quarter of the year was 9.3%. These are the first official labour market data released by Indec since President Mauricio Macri assumed office in December 2015 and ordered the complete overhaul of the Indec, which had become widely discredited under the previous administration led by former president Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) amid allegations that it regularly adjusted economic figures to paint a rosier picture. Indeed, the latest unemployment figure represents a sharp 3.4-percentage-point increase from the last official unemployment rate of 5.9% quoted for the third quarter of 2015 and 2.7 percentage points more than the 6.6% unemployment rate quoted for the second quarter of 2015.