📋 Tender Overview
First, without a doubt that today we have employment indicators at the national level, from the number of active people (who are in the market), the employment rate and the formality rate, which are higher, and also the lower unemployment, not only than the time of the pandemic, but in 2019 and 2018. Even the activity rate is at the level of 2015. We have the record of workers registered in social security, 1.55 million workers , is the all-time high. The Social Security Bank (BPS) has never had so many registered workers, so they are all very positive data. I think it has to do with the result of the strategy we had during the pandemic stage. At that time when the situation was with high levels of uncertainty, we made decisions, some linked to the support of workers, supporting employment through an unemployment insurance network that was truly monumental. I always remember that Uruguay had an average of (between) 46,000 and 47,000 workers per month on unemployment insurance, more or less stable, and from March to April 2020 it went from 47,000 to 180,000 and in May 180,000 as well, then it began to lower. So, that was a network of support and containment and income for the workers, but we also invented partial unemployment insurance that gave the worker a higher income than what they would have received with total unemployment insurance, but also We supported the companies because without that instrument, the companies had to lay off and they did not have money to lay off. It would have been a catastrophe. So, I think that was key and not closing the economy, not going to mandatory quarantine was also key. That made us leave faster. I remember that in November 2021 I decided to compare the employment indicators between February 2020 and November 2021 in different countries. Countries even from the developed world, from Latin America, and Uruguay was the one that had reached pre-pandemic levels the fastest. So, that had to do with it.
From there, we had a year 2022 with significant growth in the economy, 2023 was much more complicated, we hardly grew, and yet, employment continued to grow and it seems to me that this has to do with a climate, with a peace of mind for companies that there are rules of the game that are maintained and that they are accurate and for workers as well, the opportunity to enter with salary recovery.
