Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean is a twice-yearly report prepared jointly by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Office for the Southern Cone of Latin America of the International Labour Organization (ILO).In its last edition, the two United Nations organizations analyze the effects of the crisis caused by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the region's labour markets during 2020 and 2021, and they stress the importance of the policies implemented by countries to mitigate this impact. According to the report, in 2021 the recovery in employment and job creation has been partial and slower than the reactivation in economic activity. Although it is forecast that the region will end this year with 5.9% economic growth, this will not be enough to return to the level of Gross Domestic Product or employment recorded in 2019. Therefore, labour markets will have experienced their second year of unprecedented crisis.

A region known for its volatility, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has suffered severe economic and social setbacks from crises—including the COVID-19 pandemic. These crises have taken their toll on careers, wage growth, and productivity. Employment in Crisis: The Path to Better Jobs in a Post-COVID-19 Latin America provides new evidence on the effects of crises on the region’s workers and firms and suggests several policy responses that can bolster long-term and inclusive economic growth. This report has three key findings. First, crises lead to persistent employment losses and accelerate structural changes away from the formal sector. This change occurs more through reductions in the creation of formal jobs than through job destruction. Second, some workers recover from crises, while others are permanently scarred by them. Low-skilled workers can suffer up to a decade of lower earnings caused by crises, while high-skilled workers rebound fast, exacerbating the LAC region’s high level of inequality. Formal workers suffer smaller employment and wage losses in localities with higher rates of informality. And the reduced job flows caused by crises decrease welfare, but workers in localities with more job opportunities, whether formal or informal, bounce back better. Third, crises’ cleansing effects can increase efficiency and productivity, but these effects are dampened by the LAC region’s less competitive market structure. Rather than becoming more agile and productive during economic downturns, protected sectors and firms gain market share and crowd out others, trapping valuable resources. This report proposes a three-pronged mix of policies to improve the LAC region’s responses to crises: •Create a more stable macroeconomic environment to smooth the impacts of crises, including automatic stabilizers such as unemployment insurance and short-term compensation programs; •Increase the capacity of social protection and labor programs to respond to crises and coalesce these programs into systems that complement income support with reemployment assistance and reskilling opportunities; and •Tackle structural issues, including the lack of product market competition and the spatial dimension behind poor labor market adjustment—a “good jobs and good firms†? agenda.

This edition of the Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean report, jointly prepared twice-yearly by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Office for the Southern Cone of Latin America of the International Labour Organization (ILO) analyses the labour market trends in Latin America and the Caribbean amid the COVID-19 health crisis.

This book estimates how crises change labor market flows, assesses how these changes affect people, and discusses the key policy responses.

More than a decade has passed since the introduction of comprehensive macroeconomic stabilization packages and trade, fiscal, and financial market reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, growth prospects remain disappointing; labor markets show lackluster performance, with low participation rates, high and persistent informality, and, in some cases, open unemployment. Creating viable and lasting employment is vital to reduce poverty and spread prosperity in the region. The failure to create more and more productive and rewarding jobs carries substantial political, social, and economic costs. 'Job Creation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Recent Trends and Policy Challenges' provides a thorough examination of the labor market trends in the region in recent decades and assesses the role that labor demand and labor supply factors have played in shaping these outcomes.

In 2022, the main labour indicators for the region --participation rate, unemployment rate, employment rate and number of employed-- recovered and returned to 2019 levels. Employment policies that, since 2020, were aimed at job creation in general shifted in 2021 to target the segments hardest-hit by the pandemic, further boosting the recovery in employment in the economy as a whole and among young people and women in particular. A return to pre-pandemic levels is not enough. High levels of informal employment and wide gender gaps persist, and wages and productivity have returned to pre-pandemic trends, indicating stagnation at best. The region should therefore pursue public policies that are pro-investment, pro-innovation and increase productivity and macrofinancial stability. This must be complemented by active labour policies for greater job creation and more equitable and formal labour markets.

Law and Employment analyzes the effects of regulation and deregulation on Latin American labor markets and presents empirically grounded studies of the costs of regulation. Numerous labor regulations that were introduced or reformed in Latin America in the past thirty years have had important economic consequences. Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Carmen Pagés document the behavior of firms attempting to stay in business and be competitive while facing the high costs of complying with these labor laws. They challenge the prevailing view that labor market regulations affect only the distribution of labor incomes and have little or no impact on efficiency or the performance of labor markets. Using new micro-evidence, this volume shows that labor regulations reduce labor market turnover rates and flexibility, promote inequality, and discriminate against marginal workers. Along with in-depth studies of Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Jamaica, and Trinidad, Law and Employment provides comparative analysis of Latin American economies against a range of European countries and the United States. The book breaks new ground by quantifying not only the cost of regulation in Latin America, the Caribbean, and in the OECD, but also the broader impact of this regulation.