The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have urged Latin American countries to take measures to increase productivity in the region and create quality jobs, in a context of economic slowdown that will slow down their labor capacity.
In their latest report ‘Labor Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean’, both organizations explained that the countries of the region face a labor challenge that involves reversing the low growth in productivity and investment that has been observed since the debt crisis.
In this regard, the report makes a comparison with the productivity of other developed economies, showing a gap that is even greater when compared with other emerging economies. Moreover, unlike the latter, in Latin America, stagnation has been generalized and structural transformation has not been guided with sufficient force by productive development policies to activate the sectors that drive and energize growth.
Likewise, in order to stimulate the creation of more formal, well-paid jobs, ECLAC and the ILO are committed to raising the level of ambition of productive development policies, taking into account the new realities associated with the technological revolution. They have also called for the need for an adequate macroeconomic and financial framework.
LABOR MARKET RECOVERY «SLOW» AND «INCOMPLETE».
The report also addresses the evolution of the labor market since the outbreak of the pandemic in the region, noting that, after the «unprecedented» crisis, the recovery has been «slow, incomplete and asymmetric».
However, in the first half of 2022, favorable changes were observed in the main indicators of these markets and the employment rate reached the pre-crisis level, while the unemployment rate fell by 2.8 percentage points compared to the same period of the previous year, to 7.3%, lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Another aspect highlighted in the first part of the report is that these positive trends are accentuated among women, a group that was particularly affected during the pandemic and whose recovery has been slower than that of men in 2021. Although, in the first half of 2022, the unemployment rate fell much more among women.
Finally, the report also refers to the effects of inflation on wages, highlighting the fall in real average wages in the first half of the year.
