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ECONOMY | 26-10-2018 17:42

ECLAC: Lower growth in Latin America to hit unemployment rates

Argentina's unemployment rate currently stands at

This year’s lower growth of Latin America economies is expected to cause an increase in unemployment rates, according to a report released this week. 

"In this new, less optimistic scenario, the urban unemployment rate in 2018 is not expected to be consistently higher than 2017, once again hovering around 9.3 percent," reported the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC in English, CEPAL in Spanish) and the International Labor Organisation (ILO).

After the region reached its highest rate of unemployment in the last 12 years in 2017 (9.3 percent), for the first time in four year the rate has been predicted to decrease to nine percent by 2018.

However, the expansion of regional economies has been less dynamic than expected. The growth estimate for 2018 was reduced from 2.2 percent at the end of 2017 to 1.3 percent in October 2018.

Although the first semester of 2018 registered an unemployment rate reduction of 0.1 percent after seven semesters of interannual increases, the second half of the year will not be affected by any declining trend, according to the report. 

In the first half of the year, Brazil reached a 14.7 percent unemployment rate, followed by Argentina with 9.4 percent, Uruguay (8.7 percent), Colombia (10.7 percent), Paraguay (7.4 percent), Peru (7.1 percent), Ecuador (5 percent), and Mexico (3.5 percent).

ECLAC and the ILO also predicted "the transition toward sustainable energy will generate more than one million jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2030."

In the same manner, the transition to a circular economy, “in which the efficiency and usefulness of materials is improved by promoting durability, the ability to repair, remanufacture, reuse and recycle," would generate 4.8 million jobs in 2030.

"The creation of jobs in the sectors of steel, aluminium, wood and other metals will more than compensate for the losses associated with the extraction of minerals and other materials," the report explained.

- AFP
 

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