SANTIAGO, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Chile recovered all the jobs it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, after registering 9.16 million employed people in the first week of April, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The projected number of employed people in April has surpassed the pre-pandemic level of 9.06 million in March 2020, showed the study carried out by the Surveys and Longitudinal Studies Center of the Catholic University of Chile.

The employment rate of the country has also recovered, scoring 57.2 percent, just one percentage point below the pre-pandemic level of 58.2 percent, director of the center David Bravo said.

"We have already reached the absolute number before the pandemic, but in reality we still have to recoup more jobs because in these past two years, the population has increased," Bravo explained.

The survey was based on a national sample of households previously registered in 2016 and updated in 2021.