Latin America News – Latin America emerge stronger from the crisis thanks to falling unemployment at the regional level and the consolidation of its middle class, confirmed the International Labour Organization (ILO).
“Latin America has fattened the size of the middle class and that provides opportunities for a much more independent (region), which is not so dependent on international trade, but domestic resources and economic growth itself,” said the director of the Institute of ILO Social Studies, Raymond Torres.
The expert presented today, with other analysts of the organization, the “World of Work Report 2013”, according to which the rate of employment in the region is 57.1%, one percentage point above the previous levels to the crisis.
According to Torres, one of the most significant developments that has happened in Latin American countries is that they “have managed to implement a strategy (economic) adapted to thier own reality” and “breaking with the tendency to import foreign models.”
This explains that the report highlights that this region is one of three, where he has found a decreased risk of social tension.
The regional unemployment rate is set according to the latest data, about 7%, although in the case of young people almost doubles.
In this regard, the analyst said that “youth unemployment is one of the biggest challenges facing Latin America today, as more and more young people entering higher education and many do not get jobs suited to their situation.”
Moreover, Torres stressed that Latin America has made serious efforts in favor of “inclusive growth”, which recognized that it is particularly difficult in countries where economic expansion is based on natural resource extraction.
This kind of economic growth that are difficult to generate revenue to redistribute in society, said the expert, who said that Brazil is one such case.
The ILO report also emphasizes that Latin America is an encouraging decline in income inequality, with increased wages reached 4% last year in Brazil and Paraguay, and 1% in Mexico and Colombia.
Torres mentioned the cases of Argentina, Uruguay and Peru as the most symbolic in the effort to reduce the income gap.
In contrast, in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Chile and Honduras has seen “a slight increase” in these inequalities.
On Brazil, commented that “there is a small, but encouraging, reduced income inequality,” a goal that is “extremely difficult to achieve.”
A key factor for this has been the extension of social protection in certain countries, through programs of subsidies to the population as “Bolsa Familia” in Brazil or “Heads of Household” in Argentina.
In summary, Latina America, has and will continue to be a leading emerging market in the global economy. Based on a report by EFE
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