Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2013, published 103rd ILC session (2014)

Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122) - Panama (Ratification: 1970)

Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention. Coordination of employment policy with social and economic policy objectives. The Committee notes the Government’s report received in December 2012 containing detailed information in connection with its earlier comments. The Government describes the impact that the National Strategic Plan 2010–14 is having on the country, whose economy grew steadily between 2010 and the first half of 2012. The Committee draws attention also to a dramatic increase in investment. The Government believes that this growth was largely attributable to broad bank financing and fiscal discipline and to the infrastructural megaprojects currently under way, such as the extension of the Canal and the construction of Linea 1 of Panama’s metro system. The Government adds that, reflecting the high economic growth rate, employment increased significantly by 82,416 additional jobs in the two years 2010 and 2011. According to the 2011 household survey, the participation rate rose from the previous year to 61.8 per cent, with a participation rate of 45.6 per cent for women and 79.2 per cent for men. Unemployment, which dropped from 6.5 per cent in 2010 to 4.5 per cent in 2011, stood at 4.6 per cent in March 2012. The Committee takes note with interest that open unemployment fell from 4.7 per cent in 2010, to 2.9 per cent in 2011, close to full employment. According to a multi purpose survey conducted in March 2012, some 1,553,187 people were employed in the first quarter of that year. The Government considers the country’s labour market prospects to be conducive to a further decline in unemployment in 2012 and 2013 due to new foreign and domestic investment and to the public and private projects that are to be undertaken in Panama over the next few years. The Committee invites the Government to continue to provide in its next report details of the policies and measures adopted in order to achieve the Convention’s objectives. The Committee also requests the Government in its next report to continue including statistical data on the situation, level and trend of employment, unemployment and underemployment.

Article 3. Participation of the social partners. The Committee takes note of the decision to reactivate the Tripartite National Committee on Decent Work in Panama. The Government also notes that, with the support of the ILO Office for Central America, Haiti, Panama and Dominican Republic in the first half of 2012, the Ministry of Labour (MITRADEL) held a meeting with the social partners to agree on a draft decent work programme for 2012–15 and that the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding on the implementation of the programme is awaiting signature. The Committee requests the Government in its next report to include elements that might allow it to evaluate the activities of the Tripartite National Committee on Decent Work and the participation of the social partners in the formulation and implementation of employment policies.

The Committee is raising other points, including the impact on the labour market of the infrastructure projects and free trade treaties, the steps taken to promote youth employment and facilitate the insertion in the labour market of vulnerable categories of workers and the coordination of Panama’s training policies with its employment policies, in a request addressed directly to the Government.