The employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Crisis and the labour market

Since the financial and economic crisis began to affect the real economy and spread throughout the world, the region’s economies have been faced with a situation where data on employment and labour reflect the real stories of millions of women and men for whom the future has become uncertain. When these problems began to appear, the International Labour Organization (ILO) warned that the world faced a global employment crisis whose consequences could lead to a social recession. As the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has pointed out, the outbreak of the crisis put an end to a five-year period of sustained growth and falling unemployment. As early as the second half of 2008, the figures began to reflect slowing economic growth, while a downward slide began in the labour market. This initial bulletin, produced jointly by ECLAC and ILO, seeks to review the ways in which the crisis is affecting the region’s labour markets. Amidst a situation characterized by shocks and uncertainty, governments and social partners must have the inputs needed for designing public policies to increase the population’s levels of employment and well-being. It is planned to produce two further bulletins by January 2010, in order to measure the impact of the crisis on employment and provide an input to the process of defining the best public policies to reverse its consequences. The bulletin reviews the most recent available indicators and analyses them in order to establish trends and detect variations. It provides statistics for the first quarter, estimates for the rest of 2009, and a review of policies announced by the Governments. In 2008, the last year of the growth cycle, the region’s urban unemployment stood at 7.5%. According to economic growth forecasts for 2009, the average annual urban unemployment rate for the region will increase to between 8.7% and 9.1%; in other words, between 2.8 million and 3.9 million additional people will swell the ranks of the unemployed. Data for the first quarter of 2009 already confirm that the crisis is hitting employment in the region. Compared with the first quarter of 2008, the urban unemployment rate was up by 0.6 percentage points, representing over a million people.Work will continue until September 2009 on the preparation of a new report on the employment situation, using data updated to the first half of 2009. This will provide a picture of the region’s employment situation, so that growth and employment projections can be adjusted for 2009 as a whole. Strategies for dealing with the crisis must have jobs and income protection as their central goals. Policies are moving in that direction in Latin America and the Caribbean and, if they are effective, an even greater worsening of the situation may be avoided. Labour produces wealth, generates consumption, keeps economies functioning and is a key factor in seeking out the way to more sustainable and equitable growth once the crisis is past.

Evaluation report: regional workshop on informal sector surveys in the Caribbean's subregion

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) with support from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Central Statistical Office in Saint Lucia convened a two-day Regional Workshop on Informal Sector Surveys for the Caribbean Subregion from 12 – 13 October 2009 in Castries, Saint Lucia. This workshop was one of the culminating activities of the United Nations Statistical Division-commissioned project Measurement of the Informal Sector and Informal Employment being conducted in the subregion since 2007. It was aimed primarily at disseminating the results of a 1-2 survey of the informal sector which was carried out in Saint Lucia over the period April 2008 to January 2009.

Regional workshop on informal sector surveys in the Caribbean subregion

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Subregional Headquarters for the Caribbean, with support from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Central Statistics Office in Saint Lucia, convened a two-day Data Dissemination Workshop on the Informal Sector and Informal Employment on 12 -13 October 2009 in Castries, Saint Lucia. This workshop was one of the culminating activities of the Interregional Project on the Measurement of the Informal Sector and Informal Employment being conducted in the Caribbean subregion. The workshop served as a forum for presenting the findings of the survey of the informal sector which was carried out in Saint Lucia over the period April 2008 to January 2009.

Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Employment in microenterprises between 2003 and 2013. Improvements and challenges

The Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean is a twice-yearly report prepared jointly by the Economic Development Division of 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).

Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean: Recent improvements and persistent gaps in rural employment

This new edition of Employment situation in Latin America and the Caribbean, 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), discusses how weak job creation led to the third consecutive annual decline in the employment rate, which fell by 0.4 percentage points in 2015, indicating a reduction in the number of labour income earners per household. The ensuing drop in household income has played a large part in the increase estimated in the poverty rate for 2015. The second section of this report examines employment trends in rural areas of the countries of the region between 2005 and 2014, seeing to establish whether the improvements seen in the labour markets overall in that period also occurred in rural areas, and whether the gaps compared with urban areas decreased. The data presented in that section were generated from special processing of data from national household surveys.

Trabalho e modernização portuária: um estudo sobre os estivadores de Belém no estado do Pará

Buscou-se, com a presente dissertação tratar dos desafios que se colocam para os estivadores de Belém/PA frente à reestruturação produtiva. Realiza-se, portanto uma primeira aproximação quanto à modalidade de organização de trabalho, relacionando aspectos e ações que afetaram as relações de trabalho, enfatizando os reflexos desse processo na organização produtiva e social desse trabalhador, sendo que esse processo exige uma maior qualificação provocando, por um lado, uma polivalência, e por outro, uma maior exploração da força de trabalho o que condiz ao desemprego dos portuários e aumento das disparidades sociais. Neste sentido, a área porto torna-se um espaço de lutas sociais por politicas de saúde, segurança e assistência, que possibilite melhores condições de trabalho. Este estudo encontra-se estruturado em 05 (cinco) partes, 1) é a introdução, na qual se busca mostrar o interesse da pesquisa, a justificativa para o estudo do objeto, no qual trabalha o problema propriamente dito, os objetivos geral e específico e a metodologia utilizada. 2) propõe-se a abordar as formas de organização, controle e divisão do trabalho na sociedade capitalista, tomando como ponto de partida o surgimento do trabalho como categoria fundante da sociabilidade humana no qual o homem mantinha uma relação harmoniosa e simbólica com a natureza até a forma degradante e exploratória que o trabalho se configurou ao longo dos anos, mais profundamente, com o surgimento do modo de produção capitalista. 3) procurou compreender o desenvolvimento dos portos no Brasil, Amazônia e Pará, para compreender a dinâmica do processo de acumulação de capital que contou com o incentivo do capital internacional. 4) Foi dado destaque ao estudo da Lei nº 8.630, de 25 de fevereiro de 1993 (Lei de Modernização dos Portos), principal materialização desta lógica capitalista de modernização e reestruturação que determina o surgimento do Órgão Gestor de Mão-de-Obra (OGMO), como principal administrador da força de trabalho do trabalhador portuário avulso, visando proporcionar “melhorias” e controle da força de trabalho portuária. Objetivando compreender as conseqüências do processo de reestruturação portuária na vida do estivador de Belém no estado do Pará. 5) são apresentadas as considerações finais desta pesquisa, como visto, analisando o caso específico do Porto de Belém, destacando-se aqui a figura do Trabalhador Portuário Avulso – TPA, mais especificamente o estivador, que no mundo capitalista, assume o papel de mero coadjuvante. Mesmo diante das contrariedades que este quadro apresenta, intenciona-se considerá-lo protagonista, principal figura dentro deste processo. Em outras palavras poder-se-ia afirmar que, mesmo após a implantação da Lei de Modernização dos Portos, com seus acordos e convenções ou contrato coletivo de trabalho, que deveriam estabelecer as novas relações de trabalho, o perfil do trabalhador permanece incompatível com o processo, não atendendo, de certa forma, aos desígnios desejados de eficiência e competitividade, tratando-se de um cenário profundamente contraditório e ao mesmo tempo incerto no que diz respeito à força de trabalho do porto.

Body size and allometric shape variation in the molly Poecilia vivipara along a gradient of salinity and predation

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Labour Migration, Trade and Investment: From Fragmentation to Coherence

Trade, investment and migration are strongly intertwined, being three key factors in international production. Yet, law and regulation of the three has remained highly fragmented. Trade is regulated by the WTO on the multilateral level, and through preferential trade agreements on the regional and bilateral levels – it is fragmented and complex in its own right. Investment, on the other hand, is mainly regulated through bilateral investment treaties with no strong links to the regulation of trade or migration. And, finally, migration is regulated by a web of different international, regional and bilateral agreements which focus on a variety of different aspects of migration ranging from humanitarian to economic. The problems of institutional fragmentation in international law are well known. There is no organizational forum for coherent strategy-making on the multilateral level covering all three areas. Normative regulations may thus contradict each other. Trade regulation may bring about liberalization of access for service providers, but eventually faces problems in recruiting the best people from abroad. Investors may withdraw investment without being held liable for disruptions to labour and to the livelihood and infrastructure of towns and communities affected by disinvestment. Finally, migration policies do not seem to have a significant impact as long as trade policies and investment policies are not working in a way that is conducive to reducing migration pressure, as trade and investment are simply more powerful on the regulatory level than migration. This chapter addresses the question as to how fragmentation of the three fields could be reme-died and greater coherence between these three areas of factor allocation in international economic relations and law could be achieved. It shows that migration regulation on the international level is lagging behind that on trade and investment. Stronger coordination and consideration of migration in trade and investment policy, and stronger international cooperation in migration, will provide the foundations for a coherent international architecture in the field.

An International Regulatory Framework for National Employment Policies

Employment-related policies are sensitive by any standard, and they remain basically national despite international labour standards (ILS) being even older than the United Nations. Globalization is changing this situation where countries may have to choose between ‘more’ or ‘better’ jobs. The multilateral framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) can only have an indirect impact. But Regional Trade Agreements (RTA) and International Investment Agreements (IIA) are emerging as a new way of gradually enhancing the impact of certain labour standards. In addition, unilateral measures both by governments and importers driven by social and environmental consumer preferences and pressure groups increasingly shape the international regulatory framework for national employment policies. Even small, locally operating enterprises risk marginalization and market exclusion by ignoring these developments. The long-term influence of this new ‘network approach’ on employment-related policies, including job location, gender issues, social coherence and migration remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the still flimsy evidence gathered here seems to indicate that this new, international framework might increase sustainable employment where and when supporting measures, including through unilateral preferences and even sanctions, form a ‘cocktail’ which export-oriented industries and their suppliers will find palatable.

The origins of the international labor organization /

Includes index.

International protection of works of art and historic monuments.

"English translation ... made from a revised text, published in 1939 and 1940, by the International Museums Office of the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in the volumes, Art et Archéologie: Recueil de législation comparée et de droit international."

Application of modern technologies to international development.

A bibliography of research reports funded by the U.S. govt.

A report on international markets for U.S. consumer goods : consumer goods research.

Mode of access: Internet.

Constitution of the International Labor Organization instrument of amendment. Hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, Eightieth Congress, first session, on providing for acceptance by the United States of America of the Constitution of the International Labor Organization instrument of amendment, and further authorizing an appropriation for payment of the United States share of the expenses of membership and for expenses of participation by the United States. May 19, 1947.

Arthur H. Vandenberg, chairman.

U. S. participation in the International Labor Organization. Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Eighty-eighth Congress, first session.

Hearings held July 8-Oct. 3, 1963.