Panama job market down 14% in January

LABOR CONTRACTS  registered with Panama’s Ministry of Labor (Mitradel)  fell sharply in January down 14% in compared to the same month last  year.

If the trend continues 2017 could become the fifth consecutive year in which the unemployment rate increases in the country.

In January 2017, 20,236 employment contracts were registered, down from 23,475 in January 2016, a decrease of 3,239.

All categories of labor contracts declined, according to statistics compiled by the Office of the Comptroller General .

The last official figure on unemployment in Panama is August 2016. At that time, the unemployment levels of the non-indigenous population of the country reached 102,497 people, which caused the unemployment rate to rise to 5.8% that year, according to the Comptroller.

The unemployment rate in Panama was 4.2% in 2012, 4.3% in 2013, 5.1% in 2014, 5.3% in 2015 and 5.8% in 2016.

Young people between the ages of 20 and 24 are the ones with the highest level of unemployment in the country.

Globally, estimates by the International Labor Organization (ILO) show that levels and the world unemployment rate will remain high in 2017.

The ILO expects the global unemployment rate to increase, from 5.7% to 5.8%.

For the ILO, the situation in Latin America and the Caribbean is particularly worrying, as the unemployment rate is projected to increase in 2017, to 8.4%, mainly due to the increase in unemployment in Brazil.

By contrast, the ILO expects unemployment in the developed countries to decline by 2017 and the rate to rise from 6.3 to 6.2 per cent, from 2016 to 2017.