Primary Factors of Poverty in the Caribbean Region.

Unemployment plays one of the largest roles in any countrys poverty, when a certain nation lacks jobs, it tends to be poorer, but in the opposite case, we can say that a country with high employment rate thrives as an economically stable country. The unemployment issue that the caribbean region struggles to go through today can be considered situational, according to the economic crisis the country is currently going through, the unemployment rate that in the caribbean coast is larger than the rate shown by DANE, (Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadstica). Dating up to April 2012 unemployment statistics showed an unemployment rate 7.5%, and el 10.9%1 in the whole country. This figure is surprising more than 50% of the nations population have what it takes to qualify and be considered capable to perform any type of job, but they are still being hunted by unemployment.; having stated that, we can clearly see an erratic policy for generating jobs. Employment types that are being generated in the entire national territory are not suitable for our country, they are not the best to contribute with the unemployment issue either, They have to create honest and fair jobs, jobs that go hand in hand with the labor force that our country has and its necessities. We pointed out unemployment as one of the primary factors of poverty in the country as a whole, now we refer to a particular territory, the Caribbean region that has always been a victim of the centralism that rules the country. The preferences of the central government for certain territories and the complete negligence for some of the Colombian Caribbean territories. When we say negligence we mean there is little investment in education, en healthcare and construction. You can also see negligence by this centralized government by the lack of programs of decent housing to the population that was victims of the heavy rains and you can also add the lack of hospitals and education in all of its levels. If we live in a country where most companies require their employees to have a certain level of education, how can a person that has not even finished his or her elementary or his or her high school education get a job in one of these companies?

http://www.elheraldo.co/noticias/economia/por-que-en-el-caribe-se-mantiene-la-pobreza-72296

Another sad reality that the caribbean region lives with is its high crime rate. Its a reality that the central government little has done in order to get the caribbean region out of its poverty, in a way we can say that the government has forgotten about the caribbean therefore, the region is now unprotected. Factors like our lack in human capital (in education and healthcare) the poor infrastructure that we have, and institutional model that is still very premodernistic and the existence of strong centralism in the country, influence in the life condition of its inhabitants is not the best2. The caribbean region requires to exist on its own resources, it is necessary to abolish the strong centralism and change the political system in Colombia in order for its regions to be equally prosperous, but if we have a centralized government that invests little in a certain region, in our case the caribbean region, and that many of the resources that help Colombias economy arise are caribbean resources, Then why should we still enrich these preferred regions with our own region being a victim of hunger, bad healthcare, lack of education and all because of the corruption of the central government. We should reason about what the concept of employment really means, and it is clear that it is the primary source of wealth of a nation. This means that when the majority of the population in a country are employed and justly paid, there is not as much poverty as we see in some parts of our region. After stating this social issue, its worth pointing out that underemployment is one of the ways that the government uses to disguise the high rate of unemployment and therefore the small amount of job opportunities. Colombia cant relieve in this type of employment and informal Jobs that exist in our streets. Even though this is a way to spend time to earn money. Underemployment occurs when a person that is trained or capable for a determined occupation, task or job is not completely busy, making him or her take smaller jobs on the side in which he or she generally earns less. It also happens that in some companies in which a person starts with a minor position and is afterwards trained and titled. One of the labors of unemployment is selling items on the street. This practice clearly defines underemployment
2

PARADA, Jairo; profesor del IEEC de la Universidad del Norte, citado por el portal web del Heraldo.http://www.elheraldo.co/noticias/economia/por-que-en-el-caribe-se-mantiene-la-pobreza-72296.

and is very common in Colombia to disguise the employment crisis the country is struggling to go through. If you thoroughly research about the causes that generate unemployment in the Caribbean region you would possibly find that these have a political or bureaucratic origin.

Primary Factors of Poverty in the Caribbean Region.

Introduccion a la Economia Prof. Lorenzo Zanello

Teddy Iglesias Mauricio Cepeda Vanessa martinez

Julio 3, 2012