Blog posts tagged by tag: Latin America
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Latin America’s rising unemployment bucks nearly decade long trend
Urban unemployment rose at the fastest rate in over 20 years last year
The deepening economic crisis in Latin America was evident last year, which marked the second consecutive year of contraction in the labor market with the urban unemployment rate rising from 7.3% in 2015 to 8.9%. This is the largest annual increase in more than two decades, influenced in particular by the deterioration of the Brazilian labor market, according to the report Coyuntura Laboral en América Latina y el Caribe from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO). However, despite the poor data, levels of unemployment are still lower than in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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Driving Growth in Latin America: Challenges & Priorities
Without higher productivity, Latin America’s economic vitality will be vulnerable to three potentially very disruptive threats.
Over the past 15 years, Latin American economies have grown faster than many developed regions, yet they have lagged behind other regions in the developing world. Average growth over this period in Latin America was 3%, almost 80% of this was due to population growth and not to productivity. According to the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), between 2000 and 2015 productivity in Latin America grew by just 0.6%, one of the lowest in the world. MGI also points out that without greater productivity, there are three threats to the region’s economic momentum that combined have the potential to be very disruptive.
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Recent Global Events Facilitate Mercosur-Pacific Alliance
Recent changes within Mercosur and the Trump's victory in the U.S. have created a situation that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago
"Rarely in history do scenarios align as they are aligned today," Mexico's Economy Minister, Ildefonso Guajardo, said when speaking about the first meeting of Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance countries’ foreign ministers.
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Mexico's outlook as Trump nears 100-day mark
The risk of increased tension and a deterioration in relations under the Trump government will remain high in Mexico and across Latin America. The policies pursued by the U.S. president in areas such as trade and immigration will have an important bearing, particularly in Mexico, although current developments suggest that Trump is not likely to follow through on some of his more radical campaign pledges, while the renegotiation of NAFTA that he announced after being sworn is likely to lead to adjustments to the agreement rather that its total termination.
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Baby Boomin': Implications of high population growth in Latin America
The demographic pressure of skyrocketing population growth is most evident today in the region’s urban areas.
Latin America is home to about 625 million people, about 1 in 10 of the world's population, which now has 7 billion inhabitants. It is expected that within a generation there will be 9 billion people in the world. This high population level, however, is very recent; less than three hundred years ago the total population of the Earth was just 1 billion people, of which only 10 million lived in the Latin America region.
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How much is crime costing Latin America?
Violence is Latin Americans’ main concern
Latin America is the most violent region on the planet. The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that crime and violence are at epidemic levels, and despite the region’s recent robust economic growth, crime has continued to grow. This should be Latin Americans’ main concern, more than unemployment or the economic situation, yet the economic costs of crime and violence have thus far not received sufficient attention.
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Is rising uncertainty driving Mexico’s economic outlook? Interview with Chief Economist of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico
The Mexican economy got off to a weak start to the year, following a mild improvement in the final quarter of 2016. A preliminary estimate showed that GDP increased 2.2% year-on-year in Q4, causing the economy to expand 2.3% in the full year 2016. The result is below the 2.6% GDP growth achieved in 2015 and while the headline figure does not appear to be particularly alarming, the underlying trend suggests that Mexico’s economic growth is not robust enough. The rising uncertainty related to the unclear path that trade and immigration policies will follow during the Trump administration will continue to drive Mexico’s future economic growth. Against this backdrop, we spoke with one of our panel members Chief Economist Eduardo Vázquez from the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico about the recent developments in the Mexican economy and what he expects for this year.
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Latam to Resume Moderate Growth in 2017 but Important Risks Plague Outlook
The Latin American economy is expected to recover modestly in 2017, though the outlook is plagued with risks that are causing a downward bias in analysts’ growth forecasts, according to FocusEconomics’ latest survey of 150 leading economic institutions.
Economists forecast Latin America’s GDP to increase 1.6% in 2017, which has been revised down from the 1.8% projected last month. Economic data was stubbornly weak across the region in 2016 and growing uncertainty surrounding the global outlook in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory is weighing on sentiment, fueling concerns over the trajectory of the recovery in 2018.
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Global growth to edge up in 2017
Global growth is likely to strengthen this year but uncertainty over geopolitical issues across the globe, elections in various European countries, Brexit negotiations and Donald Trump as President of the United States, pose risks to growth. Have a look at what is expected for the developed economies & the emerging markets in 2017.
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How will emerging markets perform in 2017?
After a difficult 2015, the emerging markets have fortunately not decelerated as initially feared this year. Economic growth has been supported in 2016 by improving commodity prices and a broadly stable U.S. dollar. China’s economy has proved more robust than initially feared and the recovery now looks to be back on track in Brazil and Russia.
FocusEconomics’ Consensus Forecast sees emerging economies as a whole growing 3.9% this year, after expanding 4.0% in 2015. But what is in store for emerging markets in 2017?
Have a look at our latest Consensus Forecasts and find out what our panel of analysts says about the outlook for the key emerging markets next year.
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