What will the future of the labor market in the DR be like?

How will the evolution in the near future of the working market in the Dominican Republic? Guillem Martí, resident professor and researcher at barnamakes an X-ray of how the future of the working market in our country as co-author of the book “The future of the market of job in the DR”, together with Fernando Barrero and Javier Villamizar, a work resulting from two years of study through its Sustainability Research Center, which explains how the supply and demand of job in the country, the asymmetries that exist between one and the other, as well as the projections of trends and main recommendations to reduce said gap.

The first thing that attracts attention is knowing that we are living the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0. This is a time when companies are reinventing the nature of jobtransforming the way value is created and demanding new skills from the workforce in order to be more competitive in this dynamic environment.

The offer of job in DR

There are three major factors that define the supply of job In our country. First, a large number of young people very accustomed to using new technologies, which means a strong potential for the country; but at the same time we see that it is difficult for the population over 60 years of age to develop these capacities that are increasingly required, so that the population pyramid is narrowing at the base, becoming more similar to those of more developed countries with very few young people and many adults.

The second is sex. Women, both employed and unemployed, have higher educational levels than men, but, just as the majority of university enrollments are women, those of men are in the STEM areas (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and technology). of information and communication), which are the ones that will generate the most demand in the near future with better salaries. So there will be a mismatch.

And in third place is formality, a factor that has already been seen a lot during the pandemic. The Dominican has a capacity to adapt to the changes that happen in his life, and if something takes away his income, he looks for it, and that is very good, but at the same time this brings a lot of informality, which is dangerous because they are jobs that they are outside the protection of the legal framework, they do not contribute and are precarious in terms of hours and income.

This is how labor demand moves in the DR

But, how is the labor demand? And what is more important: what are Dominican businessmen looking for? Above all, they seek experience. Vacancies predominate, above all, for mid-level professionals in an age range between 30-45 years.

It is more difficult for the young and not so old to have the opportunity to find job: They look for people with minimum experience in a position of one year, therefore there is little vocation to train people.

Another defining factor of demand is educational level. The business community wants more and more prepared people, university graduates if possible (although they really need a technician), with knowledge of English and the ability to work with information technologies).

Competences are added to this factor, which respond more to skills and ways of acting, being the job as a team, written and oral communication, focus on results, communication skills, responsibility and leadership, the most requested.

And from here, when looking to the future, six factors are detected that affect and influence the working market and its development:

1. Technological development. New technologies change the way we work, interact and consume, therefore a national investment policy is necessary to develop technological capabilities.

2. Globalization. Both from the point of view of merchandise and being able to export to balance the country’s trade balance, as well as at the labor level, of the people we can hire in other countries or the Dominicans who will be hired outside of ours. The problem is that it is not clear where the legal protection is, something that must be standardized. Here also comes the issue of what is happening with Dominican university students: one out of every five Dominican graduates emigrates. It cannot be that we have a drain of 20% of this production. Dominican is in the highest positions of talent export; Moreover, in the United States the percentage of educated Dominican emigrants exceeds that of any other country, so there is something that is not being done well. You work to provide products and services that meet needs, but if you only work abroad, the needs that exist in the country, who covers them and in what way?, with which this is an issue that harms social welfare .

3. Demographic change. The pyramid has narrowed at the base, which leads us to populations with a higher average age, without forgetting those migrations of talent that we mentioned.

4. We have labor flexibility issues. Young people want to work and at the same time live and enjoy their free time in a different way than past generations did. The market is looking for more flexibility in the offer, but companies have not yet found the formula to offer this conciliation between professional and personal life.

5. Educational level. Not only is more and more required, but it will be sought in areas such as information technology, science, engineering and mathematics. It will also highlight the care of the elderly, which is why more nursing graduates will be needed than doctors.

6. The skills. There is a gap between demand and supply of job brought about by technological change involving softer skills.

Asymmetries in the Dominican labor market

What happens if we cross supply and demand? The result is the so-called asymmetries (or imbalances) that will allow us to know what inefficiencies are creating problems by generating unemployment, a decrease in productive capacity and a deterioration in the quality of life. What asymmetries exist in the Dominican Republic?

Greater labor demand than supply in the capital. Given the internal migration from the provinces to the city, more territorial homogenization policies are needed to generate more demand outside the city.
Retain talents with outstanding skills.
Stimulate the inclusion of women trained in higher education (especially STEM).
Give opportunities to those over 45 and under 20 with sufficient skills in digital technology.
And improving soft skills such as teamwork, assertive communication, focus on results and responsibility are some of the asymmetries that exist in our country and we need to respond to the challenges of the future labor market.

These asymmetries can become serious problems for the development of the Dominican economy and society. These are the proposals so that, at the level of private company strategy and public policy, steps can be taken to improve.

1. More investment in R&D is needed. In some Latin American countries they have already created centers for Fourth Industrial Revolution, cluster where you can investigate and seek synergies between different disciplines, to fully understand what the market wants.

two. Improve the country’s export capacity with financial resources designed for export, such as export credit insurance and development of cluster technological and computer component.

3. Encourage enrollment in STEM knowledge areas (science, technology, mathematics and engineering), but especially in women because they are mainly dominated by men.

4. Improve and develop soft skills such as assertive communication, focus on results, responsibility, creativity, critical thinking, or solving complex problems.

If we manage to reduce the asymmetries and make the supply and demand of job coincide more, we will be able to develop a future for the working market allow the full potential of the country to be developed.

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