MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Further drop in Latam average regional urban unemployment, says UN agency

The employment report was presented by ECLAC Alicia Barcena and ILO regional office head Elizabeth Tinoco

The average regional urban unemployment rate could drop by up to 0.2 percentage points to stand between 6.4% and 6.2% in 2013, the lowest rate in recent decades, according to a new report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

In the new issue of the joint publication “The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean”, the two institutions indicate that 3.5% economic growth expected for the region in 2013 should maintain the positive trends in labour indicators.

ECLAC and ILO underline that the 6.4% unemployment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2012 was the lowest in recent decades, having fallen from 6.7% in 2011. This rate is impressive given the difficult labour situations experienced by other world regions.

“With respect to 2013, there is cautious optimism regarding the performance of the region's labour markets. If projections of 3.5% in the region's economic growth in 2013 are confirmed, labour indicators should continue to gradually improve.

“This will bring new increases in real wages” according to Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, and Elizabeth Tinoco, Director of the ILO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the ECLAC and ILO report, last year the number of urban unemployed fell by around 400,000, on the back of relatively strong job creation. Nevertheless, they point out that around 15 million are still jobless in the region, and that labour indicator performance was not homogenous across the region: out of the 14 Latin American countries analysed, six saw their unemployment rate drop by at least 0.2 percentage points, while it remained stable in five and rose in three: Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Paraguay.

But the situation is clearly not as bright in the English-speaking Caribbean, where three of five countries with information available (Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago) saw unemployment rise between 2011 and 2012, taking the rate to a high of 14 years in Barbados and 16 years in Jamaica. The Bahamas was the only country to record a decrease in unemployment, which nevertheless remains high.