93% of the people who have not managed to return to the labor market after the pandemic are women.
The strong Economic recovery registered in 2021 in Latin America and the Caribbean was not enough to recover the 49 million jobs lost in 2020. reenter the labor market 4.5 million people, the 93% of them are women. This was reported by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
“Two years after the start of the pandemic, job recovery has been lackluster. The labor outlook in the region is uncertain, the health emergency due to the pandemic, it is not over and growth expectations are not so encouraging,” said the ILO director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Vinicius Pinheiro. He also highlighted that the jobs crisis in the region it could last until 2023 or even 2024.
During the presentation of the report “Labor Overview 2021 in Latin America and the Caribbean”, the regional head of the ILO stressed the “worrisome” unemployment youth and female. This has led these groups to have a greater incidence in the informality and economic sectors most affected by the health crisis.
Pinheiro mentioned the persistence of informality and the absence of social protection as the «comorbidities» that led the countries of the region to a «increased vulnerability compared to the rest of the world’, both in terms health and economic. He warned that the employment indicators in the report paint an unfavorable picture that threatens to increase child labor and generate greater political and social instability in the region.
recovery is not enough
The study estimates that the average rate of unemployment at the end of 2021, when the region had a economic growth higher than 6%, it was 9.6%. This represents a recoil compared to 8% registered in 2019.
“It has been a very modest and insufficient recovery,” said Pinheiro, adding that the low growth projected for 2022 (from 2.1% to 2.4%) threatens the path for reduce the unemployment rate. This year it could drop between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points and thus remain above 9%.
The report’s calculations do not, therefore, predict a return to 2019 levels so quickly, when the situation of the working market was far from positive in the region. This was already trapped in a scenario of slow growth, with low productivity and high levels of informality and inequality.
On this, Pinheiro insisted on the persistence of labor informalitythat in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean it affects 50% of the employed population and leads between 60% and 80% of net job creation.
As of the third quarter of 2021, the study adds, around 90% of the jobs lost during the first half of 2020 had been recovered (44.6 million of 49.1 million), which means that there is still a long way to go. 4.5 million jobsof which 4.2 correspond to women (93.3%).
The #women and the peasants are the main excluded from the economic growth of #Ecuador ???????? https://t.co/dejxaq3wRa pic.twitter.com/yglHFkDL5K
– The Ecuador Time (@lahoraecuador) January 5, 2022
Most affected groups
The report reveals that, since the start of the pandemic, job recovery was more intense among the female population, although this did not compensate for the devastating effects what did you feel in 2020 employment status of women in Latin America and the Caribbean, which is currently “more unfavorable” than in the case of men.
In fact, the Average rate from women’s unemployment it was exactly the same between 2020 and 2021: 12.4%. This is still far from the 9.4% of 2019.
“The most intense impact among women in the region is associated with the greater female presence in economic sectors strongly affected by the crisis as hotels and restaurants, and in other service activities and the household sector. On the other, to the higher incidence of informality among women”, reads the report.
Another of the groups hardest hit at the labor level by the health crisis were the young people between 15 and 24 years old, whose unemployment rate reached 21.4% in 2021, a rate lower than the 23% of 2020 but far from the 18% it registered before the pandemic. This was already considered high.
“This could be a social tragedy”warned the ILO director for Latin America and the Caribbean, who assured that in this context it is “essential” that the countries of the region move “towards formalization” and implement measures that place “employment and people in the center of economic recovery. EFE
