The report “Employment Situation in Latina America and the Caribbean”, developed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), revealed that self-employment is growing.

“Self-employment has become an alternative of income creation for many workers who have lost their jobs, or for new workers who try to compensate the income losses of their households”, states the report.

According to data from ECLAC, Ecuador with a growth of self-employment of 10.9% last year, Panama (6%), and Chile (5.5%), were the countries that experienced the largest growth of self-employment.

For the past two years, the shift of the employment composition in Chile has become evident. According to ECLAC, while in 2016 self-employment grew 5.5%, employment dropped 0.1%. Meanwhile, in 2015, self-employment grew 1.4% and employment grew 2.3%.

Juan Bravo, economist of Clapes UC, said that “when the economy grows very little, traditional employment feels the effect”. Cecilia Cifuentes, economist and academic of the ESE Business School of the University de los Andes, has a similar opinion. “The decline of economic growth in the region reduces the chances of having traditional employment, and leads workers to look for alternative ways to have an income”.

Peru and Colombia, -which, like Chile are part of the Pacific Alliance- also show a rise of self-employment, though it is less significant. Peru is one of the countries in the region with the largest growth of autonomous workers in 2016 (4.4%). Colombia did not have a significant growth of independent work (2.3%), but there was a slowdown in the creation of jobs, which went from 3.4% in 2015, to only 1.1% in 2016.