ILO expects employment in Latin America to grow by barely 0.9% in 2023

ANDl employment in Latin America will grow by barely 0.9% in 2023 —2.9 million new jobs— and 1.4% in 2024 —4.6 million—, indicated the global labor market outlook report of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

This will mean a sharp slowdown after regional employment growth of 6.4% in 2021 and 4.9% in 2022, underlines the ILO, which calculates, on the other hand, a stabilization of the current number of unemployed in Latin America ( 22 million) both for this year and for the next.

The unemployment rate in Latin American countries will remain equally stable at 7% these two years, even below the percentage before the pandemic (8% in 2019), and after that in 2020, the year in which the crisis health sector had a greater impact on employment, rising to 10.2%.

The report considers that Latin America, like other regions, will be affected by political uncertainties and inflationwhich in 2022 already translated into slowdowns in countries such as Mexico or Brazil, and which in 2023 will continue to reduce external demand for raw materials and other products in the region.

ILO figures predict that there will be a drop from 315 million employed people in 2022 —58% of the active population— to 317.9 million in 2023 and 322.5 million in 2024, with still highly unequal rates according to gender .

informality increased

In 2022, while the percentage of employment in the male active population was 70% —183 million workers—, in the female it only rose to 46.5% —132 million.

The ILO estimates that there are some 57.1 million people in the region who are either unemployed or want to work but cannot (16.3% of the active population).

It also highlights that the informality rate, one of the major structural problems of employment in Latin America, stands at 53.7%, having increased as a result of the pandemic.

With information from EFE.