70% of young Latin Americans will work in the public services and business sectors in 2030 and will leave agriculture and construction, a labor transition that decreases the region’s productivity, according to a report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) presented this Friday in Bogotá.
The report, prepared in collaboration with the NGO Ayuda en Acción, warned that youth will be at risk of job insecurity and unemployment due to the lack of specific public policies in the service sector.
In 16 countries in the region, 1.2 million young people will stop working in the agricultural sector and 640,000 will leave the manufacturing sector, which means that more than 1.8 million will begin to work in the public services and business sectors.
Compared to the 70% of young people who will work in public services and companies, commerce and basic services, only 13.3% will be employed in manufacturing, 8.2% in agriculture and 7.4% in construction.
The Economic Affairs officer of ECLAC, Andrés Espejo, claimed in the presentation of the report that this transition towards a “less productive” labor sector is compounded by the low productivity of the region, which “has stagnated” and has reduced creation. of formal and quality jobs.
Precariousness and poverty, Espejo assured that the labor markets of Latin America and the Caribbean are characterized by “structural problems, inequality and disadvantage on the part of young people,” and added that the latter have more difficulty finding jobs and that when they find them, they are worse paid and in worse conditions.
According to the report’s data, collected in 2022, the salary of more than 20% of workers between 15 and 29 years old is below the poverty line, and 37% receive salaries less than the national minimum.
On the other hand, 31% of people in that same age group were in poverty and 8.5% in extreme poverty.
Espejo stated that the main challenge is the development of public policies that ensure “equity, inclusion and sustainable development” to regulate youth employment and prevent young people from living precariously.
In this sense, ECLAC and Ayuda en Acción proposed some “key areas of action” to face these challenges, among which they highlighted the formalization of youth employment, the generation of quality jobs, the reduction of gender gaps and investment in education and training.
Employment in rural areas
50% of young employees are hired informally and the figure is higher among those who live in rural areas, whose labor informality rate is 20% higher than in urban areas.
The Minister of Labor of Colombia, Gloria Ramírez, placed special emphasis on the population of rural Colombian areas: “people who are in the countryside do not have access to their labor rights,” she said, adding that “the horizon of young people It cannot be uncertainty.”
The director of ECLAC in Colombia, Ángela Penagos, also spoke out in this sense, calling for reflection on the rural labor market: “we have not understood the role of rurality in the Colombian community.
“Understanding this is understanding the support between our countries,” he assured.
With information from EFE.
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