60,000 new job contracts in 3 months but distrust remains

In these first three months of 2023, around 60,000 new employment contracts have been registered, according to the labor minister, Doris Zapata.     She said that the construction sector has shown growth because, at the government level, many projects have been reactivated.

While the primary sector, he maintained, occupies a more permanent position because it never stopped in the pandemic.”Obviously, these contracts are of different categories and that is where we are trying to see how we can establish the mechanisms with the different action plans of Mitradel to be able to continue in the labor intermediation process without leaving anyone behind,” Zapata said. At the end of 2022, the record of new monthly labor contracts was around 24,000 contracts, “a higher record than Mitradel has managed in this first quarter of 2023,” said the Minister of Labor.

With respect to previous years, Zapata confirmed that “we have exceeded the record of contracts in the pandemic, but that of 2019 we have not exceeded.”

 Expectations of finding a new job remain uncertain for many Panamanians. According to the most recent Panamanian Consumer Confidence Index (ICCP), presented by the Chamber of Commerce, on Thursday the perception of unemployment marks an index of 84 points, one point above the previous measurement, still maintaining levels of distrust.