LABOR

Work Future.  In mid-May, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) published a report on the employment situation in Latin America. The report warned that owing to the low average GDP growth forecast in LAC countries for 2019 (1.3%) coupled with their relatively high population growth, the employment and sustainable economy objective of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 for the region would not be fully met. On the basis of this report, the ILO and ECLAC are expected to promote the updating of regulatory frameworks to better align with and respond to the transforming productive sector, with consideration for demographic factors such as ageing populations and migration.

ILO and ECLAC forecast that, for 2019, the expected economic growth in the region (approx 1.3%) will be insufficient to sustain the projected rates of urban unemployment (9.3%) and national unemployment (8%). At the same time, they estimate that this situation would increase the number of poor quality jobs, mainly in countries with struggling economies such as Argentina, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

ILO and ECLAC also pointed out that the expansion of self-employed work accounted for 49% of the increase in the number of employed persons during the past year. This is partly the result of technological transformations affecting the region’s labor markets, which has led the World Commission on the Future of Work (convened by the ILO) to call for renewed dialogue and regulation to incorporate new technologies in the workplace.

ECLAC is making progress in this regard through the coordination of Ministerial Conferences on the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean, in order to promote the development of policies that enable the productive and inclusive use of new technologies.

Next Steps

ILO and ECLAC will study how to promote new job opportunities, both at the national level and in global digital markets. Both entities argue that, in order to meet the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030, it is necessary to reverse the disparity between population growth and economic growth. This issue will be evaluated by the ILO Conference in June 2019. It is expected that the agenda until 2021 will be defined there. The topic will be taken up again in the seventh edition of the Ministerial Conferences of ECLAC in 2020 with the aim of generating a favorable framework for the development of new technologies.