Industry, commerce, services and construction sectors have become the main job generators
The Continuous National Labor Force Survey (ENCFT) conducted by the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, showed that 58.4% of the Dominican labor market was concentrated during the first quarter of 2022 mainly in four sectors: commerce (21.2%), other services (19.0%), industry and free zones (9.9%) and construction (8.3%).
These numbers reflect that industry, commerce and services have become the main engine of employment.
Of the 4,640,000 employed persons registered by this survey in the period January to March of this year, both in the formal and informal sectors, 983,930 work in commerce. The second sector that groups the activities in which 880,164 people are engaged is “other services”, that is, companies of various sizes such as contact centers, creative industry MSMEs (digital services, design, culture, fashion), as well as beauty salons and barbershops.
The industrial sector, which in this survey includes local manufacturing, free zone manufacturing and mines, registered a total of 460,379 employed persons, while those engaged in construction registered 383,331 employees in total during the period analyzed.
The Minister of Industry, Commerce and Mipymes, Víctor -Ito- Bisonó, considers as successful the public policies promoted by the Government of President Luis Abinader, which are reflected in more investments from the private sector motivated by the confidence in the economic recovery of the country. “We are proud of the contributions to development that we have promoted from the MICM with a surprising reactivation of industry, commerce, free zones, local manufacturing, warehousing and MSMEs, this is also indicated by the numbers of the Central Bank”, expressed Bisonó.
New jobs
These sectors have contributed significantly to the generation of new jobs since the beginning of the year. One of the sectors that registered the greatest growth in the number of employed persons, from January to March 2022, was the other services sector, with 67,209 new workers; followed by commerce, with 47,502; construction, with 35,134, and industries, with 16,166. One aspect to highlight is that associated with the quality of both existing and generated jobs, since the nominal salary of these sectors is among those that have grown the most from January to March 2022, compared to what was registered in 2021, with a nominal increase of 29.3 % in industry and 20.3 % in the commerce sector, well above the national average increase, which was 10 % in the period analyzed.
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