By: Staff Writer
September 9, 2025
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in a new report that investing in productive employment and decent work is essential to eradicating poverty in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region.
The report, Latin America and the Caribbean 30 Years on from the World Summit for Social Development: Towards a Global Pact for Inclusive Social Development, emphasized the importance of labour inclusion and called for the support of the implementation of the Global Accelerator on Jobs and Social Protection for Just Transitions, the strengthening of labour and labour market institutions, and the adoption of macroeconomic policies to underpin the creation of decent work.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) classifies decent work as “productive work for women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity.”
Decent work has three pillars, like rights at work, protecting fundamental workers’ rights, such as freedom of association and the right to organize; employment opportunities, ensuring access to productive work that delivers a fair income; social protection, providing security in the workplace and social protection for workers and their families; and social dialogue, empowering people to express concerns, participate in decisions, and fostering equality of opportunity and treatment.
In essence, decent work goes beyond just having a job; it means having a job that is productive, fairly paid, secure, offers opportunities for personal growth, and respects workers’ dignity and rights.
The report also said: “A weak labour market, its low resilience to external shocks and high dependence on economic growth are some of the most pressing challenges to achieving sustainable development in the region, especially in a context of persistent low growth, global uncertainty and shrinking fiscal space.
“This could slow employment creation over the medium term and diminish the effectiveness of employment as a means of overcoming poverty and building pathways towards well-being.”
The ECLAC report also said: “Since the World Summit for Social Development in 1995, the world has witnessed significant structural transformations in the areas of employment and labour inclusion.
“In the LAC, these changes have been shaped by global economic trends, technological progress, demographic shifts and a growing social demand for greater equality and integration. These transformations have reshaped the region’s occupational structure, which is marked by a steady decline in agricultural sector employment and the rapid expansion of the services and trade sectors, which account for an ever-larger share of jobs, albeit often with precarious or informal working conditions.
“Employment generation has been closely related to economic growth and highly sensitive to the various cycles in the region. Successive economic crises —such as the Asian crisis in the late 1990s, the dot-com crisis, the 2008 global financial crisis and, more recently, the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic— have directly affected the number and quality of jobs. This reflects the low resilience of the region’s labour markets to external shocks.”
Referring to the LAC’s “lost decade,” the report noted: “employment growth over the past 10 years reached a nadir unmatched in the last half-century, even following previous economic downturns.
“It took more than two years for employment to return to pre-pandemic levels. In the 10 years between 2015 and 2024, annual employment growth fell to a historic low, averaging 1.1 percent, even lower than the 1.5 percent recorded between 2010 and 2019. The weak growth expectations for the region in the coming years suggests that downtrend in the creation of high-quality jobs will continue.”