Peruvian labor market rolled back six years due to growth in informal employment

The increase in the number of informal workers in recent months has led to labor market Peru is returning to six years of progress, a study by ComexPerú warns.

Nationally, according to INEI data, the number of workers was 17,481,319, but only a little over 4.5 million Peruvians were formal.

This means that the speed informality it rose to 74.2%, meaning seven out of every 10 workers in the Peruvian market were informal.

Even though through the first three months of this year, total jobs were estimated to have increased by 3.6% compared to 2019, most of the jobs created were informal.

In 2019, there were 12 million 31 thousand 811. informal workersbut for this year 2022 there were already 12 million 976 thousand 821, that is, almost a million more unofficial ones.

According to ComexPerú, almost half of the country’s employed now are self-employed or unpaid family members, low-income workers with no access to social protection programs.

What happened to official employment?

Although President Pedro Castillo assured the nation in a national holiday message that 5.5 million formal sector jobs had been created by May, employment data show a different trend.

Until April, MTPE indicated that it produced 209,574 Positions more in the private sector compared to what it was in 2019.

But according to Comex Peru, this growth masks a low level of training in formal employment. In total, there were 2 million 846 thousand formal employees who were not classified as unskilled, which refers to a low educational level.