Santo Domingo,- The total number of workers in the Dominican Republic, including formal and informal, reached 5,117,548 in the first quarter of the year, an increase of 176,581 new employed compared to the same period last year, reported this Sunday the Central Bank (BCRD).
With this result, the occupancy rate (OR), defined as the ratio between the total employed and the working-age population (WAP), stood at 62.8% in January-March, the highest figure in the series of this indicator, the issuing bank highlighted in a statement.
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The informality rate reached its highest point, recording, according to the report, 53.4% of the employed population in January-March.
Likewise, he pointed out that, regarding the evolution of unemployment and other indicators of underutilization of the labor force, these remain around their minimum values within the historical series.
In particular, the open unemployment rate (underutilization indicator SU1), that is, the percentage of the unemployed who are actively seeking work as a proportion of the labor force, decreased from 5.1% in January-March 2024 to 4.9% in the same quarter of 2025.
Regarding the underutilization rate of the labor force SU3, very similar to the previously known as the expanded unemployment rate, which takes into consideration both the openly unemployed (actively seeking work) and people who would be willing to work even if they are not currently looking for work, showed a decrease of 1.6 points, going from 10.9% to 9.3% in the analyzed period.