ILO says flu could worsen job losses in Latam

By Jean Luis Arce

LIMA (Reuters) - A flu epidemic will hurt employment in Latin America and prompt the International Labor Organization to review its jobless estimates for the region, the regional director of the U.N. agency said on Monday.

Jean Maninat, who spoke at the Reuters Latin American Investment Summit, said the tourism and airline sectors would suffer the most.

"Obviously this will have a very grave impact," he said of an outbreak of new strain of H1N1 swine flu in Mexico that public health officials worry could spread to the rest of Latin America.

The ILO, worried about a deeper global economic downturn, last week raised its estimate for job losses this year in Latin America and the Caribbean to 3.2 million from 2.4 million in its January forecast.

Those revisions were made before Mexico was hit with the flu and its government told people to stay away from schools, restaurants and even workplaces.

At the same time, Maninat said regional leaders have acted swiftly to face the effects of the global financial crisis on labor markets.

"The characteristic of this crisis is precisely that governments have implemented policies to better distribute (income) and boost fiscal spending to better protect the most vulnerable," he said.

Maninat said some governments have implemented training programs and job subsidies for youth, and have taken steps to strengthen small and medium-sized companies, among others.