Cape Verde’s unemployment rate decreased last year to 12.4 percent, from 15.8 percent in 2014, the country’s National Statistics Institute (INE, in the Portuguese acronym) announced last week.

The President of INE, António Duarte, said – as quoted by local newspaper A Semana – the year-on-year decrease in the unemployment rate was related to a rise in employment in the nation’s rural areas.

According to INE, Cape Verde had at year-end 2015 an unemployed population of 27,599 people. That meant 6,728-fewer unemployed people in the country that there were at the end of 2014.

The youth unemployment rate – among people aged 15 to 24 – also decreased year-on-year, the official data showed. It stood at 28.6 percent in 2015, compared to 35.8 percent in 2014.