MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Job losses in Latam expected to reach 2.4 million says ILO

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says as many as 2.4 million Latin Americans could lose their jobs this year due to the global economic crisis.

The ILO says urban unemployment in Latin America will increase for the first time since 2003, to between 7.9% and 8.3%. According to an advance of the Global Employment Trends report released by the ILO regional office in Lima, Peru's capital, the global slowdown will reverse last year's gains in urban employment. Joblessness last year dropped to 7.4% from 8.1% in 2007, in the region as a whole. However this was in the context of a regional average GDP growth of 4.6%, while the forecast for 2009 is 1.9%. ILO is expected to issue its full annual Global Employment Trends report (GET) assessing the impact of the global financial crisis on employment, unemployment, working poverty and labour market vulnerability in 2009 later this week.