ILO: Unemployment reaches record high across LatAm in 2016

The unemployment rate across Latin America and the Caribbean region hit a new high this year with 25 million people jobless, five million more than last year, said the International Labor Organization (ILO) in a report released here Wednesday.

The unemployment rate in the region rose to 8.1 percent in 2016 from 6.6 percent in 2015, a record high since the region data was collected a decade ago, the ILO said in the "Labor Overview 2016" report.

Furthermore, the quality of labor has fallen as real salaries have dropped and informality has risen due to regional economic contraction, which is estimated at between 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent for 2016 by the International Monetary Fund.

Jose Salazar, the regional director of the ILO, called for measures to contain the rising unemployment, such as taking urgent short-term actions to mitigate negative social impacts, boosting structural low-productivity and diversifying production, and to implement more infrastructure projects to stimulate economy.

The report said the region's chances of returning to growth in near or medium-term depends on internal public policies taken by individual countries, the strengthening of commercial and financial ties with the United States, as well as providing answers to migration flows.

For 2017, ILO predicts the regional unemployment rate will rise from 0.3 percent to 8.4 percent. Endi