Informal jobs up, formal jobs down

[NewsWhore]

The president of the Dominican Business Owners Confederation, Marisol Vicens is stressing the need to adapt the Dominican Labor Code to new times. She says it dates back to 1992. She says that today's DR is different, it has open markets, and there is a Dominican Social Security system in place now. She says the open market means the DR has to compete internationally. In an interview with El Caribe, Vicens said that jobs in formal business are declining, while informal jobs are on the rise. She says that this has happened because of the high labor cost of formal employment. She says the DR has the highest complementary labor costs in the region, with 65% of wage costs. This means for every RD$100 in wages paid by a company, it has to put aside RD$65 in additional benefits. These include social security, health plan, pension plan, labor risk insurance, contribution to technical training at Infotep, vacation and paid absence of leave days, Christmas bonus and annual bonus on profits. She says these labor costs are just 30% in other countries in the region.
She said the country needed to start identifying government policies that can contribute to reduce unemployment, estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be at 18.5% this year. Vicens says that what is most worrisome is that despite the declining job statistics, and the increase in informal jobs, there does not seem to be any widespread national alarm, or a commitment by the authorities on the question of "what are we going to do to reactivate jobs."

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