Labor
Paraguay’s formal labour force was estimated to total about 2.7 million workers in 2004. About 45 percent worked in the agricultural sector, 31 percent in the industrial sector, and 19 percent in the services sector. Unemployment was estimated at about 15 percent. Paraguay’s constitution guarantees the right of workers to unionize and bargain collectively. About 15 percent of workers are members of one of Paraguay’s 1,600 unions. Strikes are legal and not uncommon.
The 2001 census found that 5 percent of Paraguay’s workforce was under the age of 14. Although Paraguay ratified the International Labour Organization’s Minimum Age Convention in 2004, child labour continues to be prevalent. Nearly 14 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 17 are employed, many in poor conditions and for negligible pay. The government has mandated a minimum wage of approximately US$158 per month for private-sector employees. Government employees have no minimum wage. The standard workweek is 48 hours. In 2004 Paraguay’s unemployment rate stood at 15 percent.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of Paraguay
Famous quotes containing the word labor:
“It’s not the suffering of birth, death, love that the young reject, but the suffering of endless labor without dream, eating the spare bread in bitterness, being a slave without the security of a slave.”
—Meridel Le Sueur (b. 1900)
“We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and by that right, he has forged chains around his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)