Analysis of the duration of unemployment and outcomes for unemployed persons in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Although, at first glance, it would seem to be a contradiction in terms, official statistics indicate that both unemployment and economic activity in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are on a steep downward trend. However, a decline in unemployment can, in fact, occur in the midst of an economic recession if a portion of the actual unemployment rate is concealed by employment in the informal sector and/or by a significant number of people abandoning their job search. Using maximum likelihood estimates for homogeneous Markov matrices applied to household sample survey data for the period starting with the first half of 2012 and ending with the second half of 2013, this study analyses the average duration of unemployment and the outcomes for unemployed persons. The results indicate that long-term unemployment prompts some people to abandon their search for a job (whereupon they cease to be a part of the labour market) and others to move into the informal workforce.