The number of contributing workers in the B.P.S. It increased 1.5% on average in 2023 compared to the previous year, exceeding 1,295,000 workers, according to the organization’s official figures, which are published on the BPS Observatory website. Compared to 2018, the increase in contributors is 4.6%.
The figures illustrate a Work market that not only recovered after the pandemic, but is already clearly above the levels prior to the arrival of the virus, which temporarily but strongly affected the Work market. It also reflects an improvement in the levels of formality in the economy (the BPS, obviously, records formal contributors), despite a certain increase in informality in recent months.
In addition to the general figure, the organization reports the evolution of contributing positions for each sector (table). The sector stands out there Information and Communications Technologies, With an increase of 27% in the last 5 years, the Construction with an increase of 23% in the same comparison, and the Support Services category, a broader line that covers various sectors, which increased 28%.
This category includes various business services, such as safety, cleanliness and placement of human Resources in general, and other areas such as travel agency. The progress in the group is also highlighted Professionals and Technicians, with an increase of 17% in contributors in the last five years.
Contributing positions by sector
The sector that – by far – covers the most contributing positions is trade, which has had an increase of 3% in the last year and 5% compared to 5 years ago. Within this sector, the increase in the employment linked to trade automotive, workshops and spare parts. In addition, there was a significant increase (more than 1,300 workers in the last year) in supermarket retail.
In the second most important line of contributing positions appears the public administration. This sector had a 3% drop in contributing positions last year but is 3% above its 2018 level.
Education and health, two key social services also show significant increases in comparison to the situation 5 years ago. In the case of health (which includes residential and similar) there is an increase of 6% in the number of contributing positions, while in education the increase is 10%.
At the other extreme, several relevant sectors show a drop in the number of contributing positions on average in 2023 compared to 2018. This is the case of agro and the industry, with decreases of 6 and 4% respectively. There is also a drop in employment at the level of the domestic service, which fell 7% compared to 5 years ago.
Another sector that was especially impacted by the pandemic and that – although it has recovered in recent years – has not yet reached previous levels is the healthcare sector. Hotels and restaurants, strongly linked to tourism. And since the current season has been impacted by the crisis of Argentina, Everything indicates that this sector will still have difficulties in exceeding 2018 employment levels.
Technology’s progress
The dynamics of employment in general and in particular that of each sector is key to understanding what is happening in the labor market, especially after the shock that the pandemic implied and also due to the process of technological revolution that is generating profound changes at all levels, both in the sectors (generating greater or lesser dynamism), and in work modalities, with greater possibilities of remote work (online), new contracting modalities, automation, etc. In addition, along with technological changes, important social changes.
The improvement in the labor market in recent years is encouraging, as it occurs within this framework of profound changes, which in many cases affect employment and jobs. Although job loss is always painful, the key thing is that – in the general figure – there are also dynamic sectors that generate the new jobs that the changes bring.
In this sense, improvement is far from being a guaranteed advance and we must look closely at what happens this year. Among other things because Uruguay is having problems competitiveness due to high costs, which can affect the generation of new jobs.
Source: Ambito
