Labour Overview 2015

The warning signs regarding the economic situation announced in the 2014 Labour Overview have been confirmed: labour markets in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2015 reflect the effects of the economic slowdown and sluggish growth in the region.

The most obvious indicator is the increase in the national unemployment rate, which will reach an estimated 6.7% in 2015, as compared with 6.2% in 2014. This means that at the end of 2015, there will be 1.7 million newly unemployed in the region. Some indicators of quality of employment remain positive, such as real wages and social protection coverage, largely as a result of recent institutional advances. In the near future, however, these may be affected by the decline in wage employment as a share of total employment.