Labor markets during COVID-19: gaps and challenges in Latin America.

Introduction: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latin American labor markets continue to be quantified, to identify the social and economic impacts that this pandemic had, and to design more efficient public policies that would protect the most vulnerable groups. For this reason, the research question was as follows: what were the changes in the labor formality rates before and two years after the main contingency measures of the COVID-19 pandemic were implemented?

Methods: Using data from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, the formality rate (τ) was analyzed, which was calculated using a weighted average between the formal employment rates of the number (i) of economic sectors (p) in a specific period (t).

Results: The results suggest that the weighted labor formality rate increased in the countries of the region.