According to an ILO’s report, this will be the situation in Latin America by the end of this year, and, in addition, the urban unemployment rate will increase two tenths next year.

Even though unemployment decreased in Latin America and the Caribbean during2014, the International Labour Organization (ILO) gave warning on the fact that the employment rate also went down during that period of time. This situation would reflect a reduction of at least one million jobs, a result that concurs with the economic slowdown and the rigidity of our labour markets.

The annual report “Labour Overview, Latin America and the Caribbean”, states that EMPLOYMENT behaved “atypically” during 2014. The reason is that the unemployment rate is expected to go from the 6, 3% recorded in 2013 to 6, 1%, while, according to the IMF, economic growth projections show a fall of up to 1, 3%.

ILO’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Elizabeth Tinoco, says there are “warning signals”. She stated that “at least one million jobs seized to be created”.

ILO explains this atypical behaviour due to the fact that people are leaving the workforce, which reflects a decrease in the participation rate, moderating the impacts of the decrease of jobs’ creation.

The report also informs about an unemployment increase in the region during 2015. The international organization expects that the urban unemployment rate will grow up to two tenths, reaching 6,3%, which means that there will be almost 500 thousand extra unemployed persons in Latin America.