ILO: The
evolution of labour markets in Latin America and the Caribbean during
2016 will generally be negative, due to forecasts for a more
deteriorated macroeconomic context and growth levels than
last year and to the weakening of some employment indicators, ECLAC and
the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a joint
Report released today.
The United Nations organizations point out in a new edition of
Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean that these
factors, especially the low dynamism in job creation, will likely lead
to an increase in urban unemployment of more than half a
percentage point (0.5) in 2016 versus 2015.
“The process of continuous improvement of labour indicators that
benefited the region during much of the last 15 years halted in a more
unfavourable global macroeconomic context,” Alicia Bárcena, Executive
Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and José Manuel Salazar, Regional Director
of ILO for Latin America and the Caribbean, stated in the document’s
foreword.
“This underscores the importance of taking measures not only to mitigate
the effects of the crisis in the short term, but also to tackle the
gaps and lags over the longer term, such as scarce productive
diversification, productivity gaps, high informality and
inequality,” they added.
The Regional Director of ILO will be one of the special participants in
ECLAC’s thirty-sixth session, to be held in Mexico City from
23 to
27 May. In the event, Salazar will deliver a presentation in the round table on regional dimension of follow-up to the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a series of goals related to inclusive growth and decent jobs.
The
Report provides an overview of the performance of Latin American and
Caribbean labour markets in 2015. It indicates that, mainly as a result
of a slight contraction in regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP), that
year the average unemployment rate recorded
its first increase since 2009, rising to 6.5% in 2015 from 6.0% in
2014.
That increase was produced by greater numbers of job seekers entering
the labour market compared to previous years, who did not find the
necessary quantity of jobs due to the weak creation of salaried
employment—which reflects the low dynamism of economic activity,
the study adds.
In addition, at a regional level job quality deteriorated because, in
light of the dearth of sufficient salaried positions, self-employment
expanded and was generally of lower quality.
According to the document, the weakness in job creation in 2015 was
manifested in the third consecutive annual decline in the employment
rate (by 0.4 percentage points), which implied a reduction in the number
of wage income earners per household. This fall
in income has played an important role in the estimated poverty
increase for 2015 (to 29.2% of the region’s inhabitants, according to
ECLAC’s latest projections).
Nevertheless, ECLAC and ILO stress that the deterioration of employment
and unemployment indicators is not a widespread phenomenon in the
region.
In 2015, the unemployment rate increased in just seven of 19 Latin
American and Caribbean countries, while in nine others it fell and in
the remaining three it held steady. In general, in Central American
countries, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean
nations the labour market’s evolution was more favourable than in South
America, whose performance was affected by the impact of the external
context on its economic activity and inflation, among other factors.
The current edition of Employment Situation also analyzes trends in
rural areas of the region’s countries between 2005 and 2014 with the aim
of identifying if the improvements seen in this period for labour
markets as a whole were also registered in these areas,
and if the gaps with respect to urban areas narrowed.
The available data shows that rural areas did indeed benefit from the
improvements in employment indicators related to quantity and quality
seen in the regional total. Nevertheless, the urban-rural gaps did not
shrink.
On this topic, the report concludes that in order to advance towards
reducing the deficit of decent jobs in rural areas, greater
modernization and productive diversification are indispensable, along
with productivity improvements in the farming sector. In addition,
the report recommends strengthening labour institutions to contribute
to the formalization of rural employment, improved social protection,
greater compliance with the minimum wage and other labour regulations,
as well as to reduce the obstacles to labour
insertion for women and youth from rural areas.
Report:
http://www.ilo.org/global/
about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/
WCMS_480313/lang--en/index.htm
http://www.ilo.org/global/
about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/
WCMS_480331/lang--en/index.htm