The unemployment rate is still near 6.5 percent, low from a historic perspective, but the creation of salaried jobs has remained slow and surveys reveal increased uncertainty about the future behavior of the labor market. For companies, the greater pessimism has coincided with low profitability levels and investment conditions they see less attractive. Along with this, inventories are still judged as excessive despite repeated reductions in the past few quarters. As mentioned earlier, domestic credit cost has become more favorable, in line with the substantial reduction of the monetary policy rate that took place in the past year (figure 6). Long-term interest rates also declined significantly during the last year and a half, mainly responding to monetary policy actions (figure 7). Still, real annual growth in consumer and commercial lending is low, in some cases in its minimums of several years. The exception is mortgage credit, which is still growing strongly. The September Bank Lending Survey reveals a tightening of supply, but more importantly a drop in demand. The baseline scenario sees output growing 1.7 percent this year, marginally below the range foreseen in September. This reflects the aforementioned weakness of economic activity in the third quarter and its extension into the last quarter of the year. It also reflects that, so far, consumer and entrepreneurial expectations have failed to post the improvement that was expected some months ago.
By regions, it is worth noting the widening divergence between the United States – with a more consolidated recovery – and other developed economies, such as the Eurozone and Japan, which have made further downward revisions. In the emerging world, prospects are also weaker, with Latin America making the bigger downward corrections. In the baseline scenario, our trading partners are expected to grow 3.5 and 3.9 percent in 2015 and 2016, respectively (table 2). In the baseline scenario, external financial conditions and prospects will be less expansionary than they were this year, but will remain favorable from a historical perspective. In the United States, the Federal Reserve Board ended its asset purchase program and is expected to raise the federal funds rate in 2015, probably pushing US long-term rates up. The Eurozone and Japan have pursued a more expansionary monetary policy, because of weaker economies and deflationary risks, and further efforts in this direction are expected in the coming quarters. Thus, long-term interest rates in the main developed economies continued to recede or remained low. The better relative performance of the United States compared with the rest of the world has led to an overall strengthening of the dollar, affecting the other currencies, including the Chilean peso. In Chile, its trajectory has also been influenced by the adjustment of the local macroeconomic scenario, changes in monetary policy and the decline in copper prices (figure 8). The drop in commodity prices has triggered important changes in the world inflation outlook.