NewsWhore
10-28-2009, 05:40 PM
The informal sector has become a "formal" economic sector in the DR. Not so much for the way it operates, but the way it has generated jobs, revenues and rate at which it has grown. According to Lisandro Macarulla, the president of the National Business Council (CONEP), 545,000 new jobs were created in the DR between 2000 and 2008, but of those 160,000, or only 29% were created by the formal sector of the economy. This means that 71% (385,000) of all jobs created in the previous eight years were in the informal sector.
Macarulla was speaking at the Forum on Local Development and Jobs, organized y the Ministry of Labor at Santo Domingo's Hotel Intercontinental V Centenario. He said that despite the Gross Domestic Product having grown 40% from 2004 to present, the growth has not taken place in the traditional productive sectors: these jobs have been created in trade and service sectors, as well as in government.
Macarulla quoted sources reported by the Central Bank and added that the growth of the informal sector is a concern for the DR. The informal sector involves micro-enterprises, farming and small-scale services, where wages, productivity and levels of social protection are generally much lower than in the formal sector. Much of this work is also temporary and part-time, with less job stability and benefits to employees.
Also speaking during the forum, Labor Minister Max Puig said that the unemployment rate is at 14.9%, and every year 100,000 young people enter the job-seeking arena. He said the authorities are working to reduce unemployment to 13.9%, the level in 2000.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
Macarulla was speaking at the Forum on Local Development and Jobs, organized y the Ministry of Labor at Santo Domingo's Hotel Intercontinental V Centenario. He said that despite the Gross Domestic Product having grown 40% from 2004 to present, the growth has not taken place in the traditional productive sectors: these jobs have been created in trade and service sectors, as well as in government.
Macarulla quoted sources reported by the Central Bank and added that the growth of the informal sector is a concern for the DR. The informal sector involves micro-enterprises, farming and small-scale services, where wages, productivity and levels of social protection are generally much lower than in the formal sector. Much of this work is also temporary and part-time, with less job stability and benefits to employees.
Also speaking during the forum, Labor Minister Max Puig said that the unemployment rate is at 14.9%, and every year 100,000 young people enter the job-seeking arena. He said the authorities are working to reduce unemployment to 13.9%, the level in 2000.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)