By presenting the report “Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2024,” the Executive Secretary of that UN mechanism Jose Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs pointed out that from 2015 to 2024 the area only advanced by 0.9 percent, lower than the lost decade of the 1980s.
Apart from the domestic situation, the authority added, our countries are under the influence of global predicaments, such as the downturn in the world economy, the contraction of international trade, and geopolitical pressures that trigger high levels of uncertainty.
According to the senior official, this directly impacts the capacity to create quality jobs, especially in the formal sector.
From 2013 to 2023, the average new job creation in the region was only 1.3 percent, significantly lower than the 3.9 percent recorded in the 1970s or the 2.3 percent in the 1990s.
Nonetheless, there is another much more worrying finding because a perverse structural change has been generated. After all most placements are directed towards sectors of lower productivity, instead of moving in the opposite direction, Salazar-Xirinachs underscored.
For example, the leader mentioned what happened in services, which in 70 years went from 28.5 to 75 percent of total employment, but with a high proportion of informality and low economic productivity.
In contrast, agricultural activity accounted for more than 50 percent of the labor force in 1950, today it barely reaches 15 percent.
Another worrying issue, pointed out by ECLAC, is the increase in informal labor, where more than half of all employed persons are submerged, a figure that has ramped up in the last 10 years.
The report states that being a woman increases the risk of falling into this sector and if other people depend on her, the probability is much higher.
Groups such as young people, the elderly, or those who live in rural areas and have a low level of education are more likely to suffer from this problem, and those with technical or university training tend to have access to higher-quality jobs.
The Executive Secretary of ECLAC said that such trends reveal the importance of a significant upturn in public and private investment in structural reforms, to advance the qualification of current and future workers.
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