Governor: There’s jobs for everyone

Governor: There’s jobs for everyone

By CB Online Staff

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nesspr.com; cbprdigital

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Gov. Alejandro García Padilla is sharpening his focus on job creation as new data points to further darkening in Puerto Rico’s murky jobs scene.

The governor touted more than 1,000 open positions in the private sector during a job fair staged by the Labor Department Administration in Cataño on Tuesday. He said he would announce further employment opportunities during an activity in San Germán later this week.

“There are jobs for everyone,” García Padilla said.

“There is employment and this also overturns the idea that Puerto Ricans don’t want to work,” he added.

The job fair involved 10 employers and covered positions from highly-skilled information technology posts to restaurant work. All are full-time positions, the governor said.

Government officials were also on hand to provide orientation to job seekers. It was the 15^th job fair hosted by the Labor Department Administration in Puerto Rico so far this year.

García Padilla has repeatedly reiterated his campaign pledge to create 50,000 new jobs during his first 18 months in office. Administration officials say they are well on the way to meeting that mark by next summer’s deadline.

However, newly released data highlights the stark challenges facing job seekers in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico’s dismal labor participation rate fell again in August as the unemployment rate ticked up for a second straight month.

A Puerto Rico Labor Department report released Monday pegged the participation rate at 40.9 percent in August, down from 41.3 percent in the same month a year ago. It was 41 percent in July. The U.S. labor participation rate fell to 63.2 percent from 63.4 percent, the lowest for the month since August 1978.

Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate edged up to 13.9 percent in August while the number of people working on the island continued to fall. It was the second straight increase in the jobless rate, which climbed to 13.5 percent in July after five straight monthly declines. The August jobless rate was still lower than the 14 percent mark in the same month last year.

The number of people on the jobless rolls actually fell to 165,000 last month from 170,000 in August 2012.

The unemployment rate tracks only those people who are out of work and actively seeking employment and getting jobless benefits from the island Labor Department. Thousands of other jobless people are seeking work on their own.

The local Labor Department estimated the size of Puerto Rico’s workforce at 1.182 million in August, a drop of 28,000 people from the same month in 2012. The number of people outside the workforce rose 3,000 to 1.713 million.

The report pegged the number of people working in Puerto Rico at 1.018 million in August, down 22,000 from the year-ago period.

Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics last week show the number of people on nonfarm payrolls in Puerto Rico fell to roughly 897,100 in August, a decrease of 42,000 from the same month last year.

Gobernador dice que en Puerto Rico “hay trabajo para todo el mundo”

Anuncia 1,000 puestos disponibles en sector privado

El gobernador aseguró que todas las plazas disponibles son para puestos permanentes.(david.villafane@gfrmedia.com)

Por Nydia Bauzá / nydia.bauza@gfrmedia.com