Santiago, August 1 (RHC) Chile reached the highest overall unemployment rate in a decade amid the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.2 percent, the National Statistics Office (INE) revealed on Friday.

Chile is among the four countries in Latin America with major COVID-19 outbreaks alongside Brazil, México and Perú.

According to the institution during the second quarter of this year, from April to June, the number of unemployed people soared to 996.900, an increment of 299.100 compared to the same period in 2019.

"The national unemployment rate was 12.2 percent (7.3 percent a year ago), but the fragility of the labor market goes beyond what this figure says, due to the workers who are outside the labor market in transitory form due to the effects of the pandemic," explained the Minister of Economy Lucas Palacios via Twitter.