Employment and economy: commerce and industry allow us to be optimistic again – Sectors – Economy

If the economy is doing well, Colombians too, say some analysts. That's why yesterday, the results presented by the Dane, about the growth of the industry, retail and hotels sent the signal that there are reasons to be optimistic about what can happen to the economy in the total year.

Retail trade had a rhythm of 8.5 percent year-on-year in July, while the manufacturing industry expanded its production by 3.5 percent and hotel activity allowed the sector's revenue to increase by 11.9 percent .

These numbers are in line with the expenditure of households that, according to Raddar, in August, increased by 10.3 percent in pesos, with a figure put into the economy by families of 58.1 billion pesos in that month.

Meanwhile, data from the sectors, which are part of the monthly manufacturing and retail trade surveys of the Dane, indicate that these two sectors, which have a great contribution in employment, had a better dynamism in the seventh month of the year .

28 of 39 sectors in positive territory

In the manufacturing sector, for example, of 39 industrial activities that are part of the survey, 28 recorded positive variations in their actual production. This led to the sub-branches that had upward results adding 4.9 percentage points to the total annual variation.

The remaining 11 subsectors, which had negative variations, subtracted 1.4 percentage points from the total variation.

However, for Bancolombia economic analysts, “the progress of manufacturing production was accompanied by a dynamism in sales (5.3% per year), which suggests that during the period there was a trend of inventory decumulation, which It would facilitate the continuation of these positive results in the remainder of the year. ”

Regarding trade, within the expansion that sales had, it is noted that almost all merchandise lines (15 of 16) registered positive variations in their real sales.

These results led to hiring hiring, as employed personnel varied 1.4 percent compared to the same month of 2018.
For employment

Precisely, the optimism for the results is due to the fact that they are among the great generators of employment, so it stands out that, in July, the hotels, although they did not have an increase in the employed personnel, at least they kept the jobs stable , with a variation of zero.

The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, José Manuel Restrepo, stressed that “the services subsector that reached the best behavior was that of computer systems and data processing with a variation of 21.4%. This was followed by administrative and office support activities (15.5% expansion). ”

It is the same sense, the president of Andi, Bruce Mac Master, highlighted the industry data as “a very good figure”. He added: “We should receive it as a good symptom of the potential of the economy, of the demand and of the type of growth that we have to look for. Increase the average of the year. We must be optimistic with these signals. ”

Jaime Alberto Cabal, president of Fenalco, said that “there were 5 or 6 subsectors, especially of durable and semi-durable goods, which are growing well above the average (8.5%). Building materials, appliances and communications have rates of 20%. ”

This would be the eighteenth consecutive occasion in which trade has sales growth exceeding the general dynamism of the economy.
Therefore, Cabal joined those who invite to reduce pessimism. "The results are obvious, but on the one hand the indicators go and on the other the pessimism of the people."
Cars and homes

Over time, household spending has been driving the growth of the economy and, in August, according to Raddar, the boom in entertainment spending (8.6%) stands out, which shows that families are having to cover expenses other than basic expenses (in food expenses grew by 7.1%). The same happened with the purchase of vehicles because, according to Fenalco, In August, 23,284 vehicles were registered, representing a growth of 8.7% compared to the same month of the previous year.

ECONOMY AND BUSINESS