The economist and labor consultant René Quevedo analyzed this Tuesday the issue of subsidies that hit the country’s economy, asserting that the economy is not generating new jobs.
“The subsidy comes as a palliative, since the economy is not generating new jobs, it is more an effect than a cause. Mitradel’s statistics show it because there is no confidence in the private investment climate in the country,” he explained.
He highlighted that in 2020, Panama lost 364 thousand formal jobs in the private sector, which represented 42% of all its salaried workers, while another 284 thousand, 32%, had their contract suspended.
In the first year of the pandemic, three out of four formal jobs disappeared or were suspended. “We have been recovering, however, we are far away.”
He added that between 2011 and 2021, the population of working age grew by 716,000 people, however, the number of formal public and private jobs fell by 45,000 jobs, which means that today we have fewer formal jobs than in 2011.
Quevedo mentioned the Ministry of Labor and Labor Development (Mitradel) indicating that on average, the entity processes some 19,600 new labor contracts per month, when in 2019 we were talking about 33,600 new contracts.
