As David Francis pointed out in a recent blog, the private sector in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region showed some resilience to the heavy distortions of the recent financial crisis. Latin America’s market economy is working in a way where more productive businesses are able to survive, while less productive firms are exiting the market.
But how does this fit into the larger picture of the region’s private sector?
A partial answer to this question is that the region’s private sector is adding jobs. Especially in a period where the developed world faced severe challenges on job creation, the region succeeded in creating new jobs by almost five percent in both manufacturing and service sectors. This trend is widespread: service sector firms in all countries – as we covered in a recent note on firm performance – added jobs. And in only 5 of the region’s countries did manufacturers decrease the number of employees on their books.