The International Labor Organization (ILO) considers that the trend in the labor markets in Latin America and the Caribbean during the coming months presents “a complex and uncertain future.”
The agency affirms that, although the indicators have improved, the “devastating impact” of COVID-19 on employment and income in the region is still being felt.
Until “the first quarter of 2022, the unemployment rate is 7.9%, the employment rate is 57.2%, and the labor force participation rate is 62.1%,” said Claudia Coenjaerts, interim regional director of the ILO Latin America and the Caribbean, at a press conference this week.
According to the agency, the decline in regional economic growth and the effects of the global crisis also affect the slowdown in the recovery of employment.
One of the concerns is that there is no uniformity in the trends recorded by the different countries.
“Not only are there countries that have not recovered their employment volumes, but also, in this context of slowdown, those achievements we had towards the end of last year can be reversed,” explained Roxana Maurizio, regional specialist in labor economics at the ILO, also present at the press conference, organized in Lima.
The ILO explained that the recovery of employment goes hand in hand with the macroeconomic projections for the region. According to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), growth is projected at 2.7% towards the end of this year.
“There is still a labor force that did not return, precisely, to economic participation and, therefore, those people, who are still out of the labor force, could generate increases in the unemployment rate,” Maurizio stressed.
The international organization expressed an additional concern: labor informality has led the recovery of employment: between 50% and 80% in the period between the third quarter of 2021 and the first of 2022.
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