2023-12-20 18:06:25
Latin America – The International Labor Organization (ILO) publishes its latest report on the labor outlook in Latin America and the Caribbean, which shows the recovery of employment rates in the region, although the gender gap persists, unemployment youth and the loss of purchasing power of salaries, among others.
First modification: 12/20/2023 – 17:06
4 min
According to the latest report published by the International Labor Organization (ILO)the loss of purchasing power and the increase in inflation in a large part of the countries in the region has led to the growth of the phenomenon of the working poor, that is, people who live in poverty, despite having a job.
Roxana Maurizio, expert on Latin American labor markets and coordinator of the Labor Panorama report of the ILO, he tells us for RFI, the keys to this report.
RFI: In this report they assure that the region presents a full recovery of its occupancy rates. But you say, “with a highly complex work scenario,” explain the complexity involved.
Roxana Maurizio: On the one hand, although the employment rate has recovered at the regional level – in fact, the employment rate is slightly higher than what the region recorded on average in 2019 in 8 of 16 countries -, the employment rate is still It is still lower than that recorded 4 years ago. In addition, the labor supply has not yet recovered its pre-pandemic values at the regional level. So, although the employment rate recovered at the regional level, the economic participation rate did not so much.
In fact, 9 out of 16 countries, the participation rate is still lower than in 2019. And above all in this regional context, what we observe is the lag in terms of employment and in terms of economic participation of some particular groups. The lag in this recovery of women with a lower educational level stands out. This is part of what we are seeing in this complex panorama, despite the fact that this regional data shows a complete recovery in the occupancy rate.
RFI: A complete recovery in the employment rate, which does not mean that informal jobs have not increased and that in this sense, there are job creation challenges in the region.
Roxana Maurizio: Without a doubt, because indeed, we have been monitoring how much the creation of informal employment has contributed to this total recovery of employment and the contribution continues to be very high. Depending on the country, we are talking between 40 and 90% of the employment recovery was associated with informal positions.
In a context where the average informality rate is 48%, without a doubt the quality of employment is one of the most important problems at this time. That The region’s 48% informality rises to 60, 70, 80% In some countries where informality is the norm and not the exception, then the precariousness of employment continues to be one of the most important problematic characteristics at the regional level.
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RFI: Which would be the countries where informal employment is breaking records?
Roxana Maurizio: Ecuador, for example, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and Paraguay, are some of the countries that have informality rates above the 48% that we observe at the regional level. And also what we observe is that in many countries in the region the rates of female informality are even higher than the rates that we observe on average for men.
RFI: Are there any countries where we can really highlight an employment policy that has increased job stability, that has increased the employment rate, based precisely on this State policy and not based on informal jobs?
Roxana Maurizio: Among the countries that have managed to reduce the informality rate in this context is Uruguay, for example. Uruguay has continued the pre-pandemic decline in the informality rate and it continues. Chile is another country where the informality rate has also continued to decline.
The difference is that Uruguay has completely recovered the employment it had before the pandemic and Chile still shows a lag, but these two countries are two examples of this situation where the informality rate is not higher than before the pandemic, which It is precisely like the characteristic that we find in a greater number of countries.
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RFI: The population in Latin America has also grown by 18%. Could this population increase make us think about countries in the hemisphere establishing transnational policies for job creation or is it a crazy proposal?
Roxana Maurizio: The demographic question has different aspects. Indeed, we see that there are very important demographic changes, but above all we do not look so much at the number of the population itself, but at the composition of the population. What is observed in Latin America is clearly a demographic transition important and this has challenges not only in the labor market, but in terms of social protection, and precisely in matters of the labor market. A growing concern has to do with lifelong vocational training, understanding that this aging of the population means that this population must remain in the labor market longer.
In a changing context associated, among other phenomena, with the digital transition, technological change is a population that will be requiring, demanding new qualifications due to the obsolescence of the human capital that these people have and, therefore, this requires from the labor policies, lifelong vocational training policies. Thus, there is a very important challenge in advancing on this path of having comprehensive systems with broad coverage that bring people’s qualifications closer to what the productive sectors in these countries require.
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