Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the country registered annual unemployment rates of 10.3% in 2020 and 7.8% in 2021. From 2017 to 2019 or three years prior to the global health crisis, the average unemployment rate was at 5.4%. In terms of the number of unemployed persons 15 years and older, the average was 2.3 million from 2017 to 2019 and 4.1 million from 2020 to 2021, reflecting an increase of 1.8
million.
