Unemployment in Argentina rises from 5.9% to 9.3% - the highest in nearly a decade.

Argentina's National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) reported that the country's unemployment rate rose in the second quarter of 2016 to 9.3%.

The figure was published in the first official labor market report since the Mauricio Macri administration decreed a statistical blackout within days after taking office last December.

This also represents a sharp increase from a 5.9% rate in the third quarter of 2015 - the last quarter covered before the statistical blackout - and marks the highest level of unemployment in Argentina since a 9.8% rate in the first quarter of 2007, when the country was still climbing out of its historic crisis five years earlier.

It is, however, the steepest jump since May 1995, when a ripple effect from the Mexican "Tequila" crisis caused unemployment in Argentina to skyrocket from 12.1% to 18.4% in just six months.

The latest rate is 57.6% higher than six months prior, and means a 64% jump (456,000) in the absolute number of unemployed - from 709,000 six months ago to 1,165,000 currently. This is consistent with the latest monthly labor market report published by the Center for Argentine Economic Policy (CEPA), which tallied layoffs and suspensions nationwide at 194,422 since the right-wing Macri administration took office eight months ago.

The rise in unemployment was widespread, with 26 of 31 metro areas surveyed recording an increase. The most severely affected was Neuquén, with around 300,000 people the largest metro area in windswept Patagonia. Layoffs at the state energy firm YPF and in the local horticulture industry have helped push unemployment there from 2.9% six months ago to 8.6% now.

Metro Buenos Aires, home to nearly one in three Argentines, also saw its labor market severely deteriorate, with unemployment rising from 6.0% to 10.6% - nearly doubling their ranks from 383,000 to 740,000 in just six months. Layoffs in the public sector, manufacturing, and construction - all leading metro area employers - accounted for most of that increase.

The Permanent Household Survey (EPH), published regularly by INDEC since 1974, now covers 31 metro areas nationwide with 27.2 million people between them (63% of Argentina's population).

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