Colombia's National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) reported that the unemployment rate for 2025 was 8.9%, the lowest since 2001. This figure marks a 1.3 percentage point decrease from 2024. In December 2025, the rate fell to 8%, with employed population rising by 603,000 people.
The DANE presented Colombia's labor market results for 2025, highlighting an annual unemployment rate of 8.9%, the lowest in the historical series since 2001. This represents a drop of 1.3 percentage points from the 10.2% in 2024, with 2.1 million people unemployed by year-end.
In December 2025, the unemployment rate was 8%, a statistically significant reduction of 1.1 percentage points from 9.1% in the same month of 2024. The employed population increased by 603,000 people, 2.6% more than the previous year, raising the occupation rate to 59.2% from 58.5%. The global participation rate stood at 64.3%, slightly below 64.4% in 2024.
Labor informality fell to 55.5% in December, a 1.2 percentage point decrease. Gender gaps showed rates of 11.4% for women and 7.0% for men in the year, the lowest in nine years analyzed. For the October-December 2025 quarter, the rate was 7.7%, the lowest in that period.
Among the 13 cities, the lowest unemployment rates were in Bogotá (6.5%), Villavicencio (7%), and Pereira (7.3%), while Quibdó (23.1%), Cartagena (14.1%), and Sincelejo (11.4%) had the highest. Sectors with the largest increases in employed people included manufacturing industries (510,000 people), public administration, education, and health (121,000), and artistic and service activities (114,000).
Piedad Urdinola, DANE director, emphasized: “This rate is the lowest in the entire series since 2001.” President Gustavo Petro celebrated the data on X, stating that “these economic results show that all the worldwide legal, political rhetoric of the opposition, and those who influence it: the big money of Colombia's mega-rich, is absolutely wrong; here the majority media discourse is refuted.”
