The low economic growth experienced by Latin American and Caribbean countries in the last few years will continue affecting the region’s labour market performance in 2017.
According to the latest estimates, the rate of regional urban unemployment could reach 9.4 percent on average this year, which represents a 0.5 percentage point increase from the 8.9 percent recorded in 2016, ECLAC and the ILO indicated today in a new joint report.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) released the newest edition of their joint publication on employment, which sums up labor dynamics in the region during the first half of this year and analyzes the characteristics of the transition made by young people (one of the groups most affected by the labour deterioration) from the educational system to the labour market.
According to both United Nations organizations, during the first half of 2017 two trends were observed: while the deterioration of some labour indicators (such as the employment and unemployment rates) persisted, a slower pace of deterioration was noted, which could point to “a light at the end of the tunnel.”
The figures released in the report show a 0.3 percentage point decline in the rate of urban employment (the proportion of the working-age population that is employed) and a 0.9 point increase in the rate of urban unemployment between the first half of 2016 and the same period of 2017.
