The expert told Prensa Latina that the region’s situation for 2022 will be more uncertain and complex, with economic growth and employment recovery slower than anticipated. In addition, there will be greater inflationary pressures, high exchange rate volatility, low levels of investment and productivity, and high levels of informality, inequality and poverty.

The health crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, increased the socioeconomic deterioration of the area with lags in the labor markets in relation to the behavior of economic activity, in an area characterized by large social debts.

He added that of the jobs lost in 2020, approximately 30 percent were not recovered in 2021, while at the same time informal work continues to rise. In other words, a higher number of employed people is associated with a lower quality of jobs, the researcher pointed out.

But the recovery of employment is partial and often at the expense of certain segments of the population, such as women, which places them at a great disadvantage and accentuates the gender gaps in the regional labor market.

In the third quarter of 2021, the participation rate for women was 49.7 percent, but for men it stood at 71.5 percent, a figure two percentage points below the same period in 2019.

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