The Government “cooks” a new labor reform

Ecuadornews:

Thebudgetary proforma, made transparent for the first time in its entirety to besubject to public scrutiny, is monopolizing all the debates. Even academics.The Economy Minister, Richard Martinez, and the Secretary General of thePresidency, Eduardo Jurado, could not avoid on Monday the innumerableinterpellations on the looseness of the cuts to public spending for the year2019, in a debate organized by the UEES University

There was not, as expected, the questioning of the high amount in the public wage bill for a country with 16 million inhabitants. The State delivers 9% of everything that is produced in the country in a year (of GDP) in paying public officials.

Afterthe change of government and the subsequent change of economic direction,everyone expected the Executive to use scissors in their first budgets,especially in personnel costs. But the adjustments applied did not bring that satisfaction. And the Government itself, aware of the national difficulty inbalancing its annual accounts, already speaks of a great labor reform.

“It is a pending task,” acknowledged Economy Minister Richard Martinez, before a hundred attendees at the event. In a dollarized economy, where the adjustment is applied by means of labor – that is, dismissals – there are “extremely high rigidities” in terms of work, according to Martínez. For that reason, it is imperative to promote in time “a great labor reform that allows to generate much more capacity of contracting, of entrance and exit of the workers”.

With a special focus on microenterprises. “I’m not talking about the big company because the big company sacrifices profitability -, I’m not saying that’s fine – but it’s going to subsist over time. The problem is in the microenterprise where the rigidity of work forces the microentrepreneur to maintain himself in the informal sector or to die “, he ratified, without giving more details about that great reform that is already in the mind of the Government, but it has not yet taken shape or date.

Walter Spurrier, economic analyst, kindly rebuked him to open his hand accepting hiring for hours while the labor reform is being cooked.

The general secretary of the Presidency, Eduardo Jurado, aligned himself with the minister and recalled that an austerity decree has already been applied that has prevented personnel spending from increasing. According to their figures, 40,000 public jobs were lost and 45,000 new jobs were created – for new hospitals, schools, etc. – which leaves the balance in only 5,000 additional officials.

Review subsidies

It willnot be the gas or the gasoline of the collective transport, but the Governmentitself is analyzing to review again the subsidies to the fuels. There is stillroom in the industrial diesel and the eco-country is under study, given thedeficit of ethanol in the current mix. Of course, Eduardo Jurado, generalsecretary of the Presidency, ratified EXPRESO that 90 cents per liter ofethanol will not be paid because that means subsidizing the eco-country,although importing naphtha is more expensive. (I)

Source: https://www.expreso.ec/economia/reforma-laboral-ecuador-trabajo-politicas-JH2485964