"COVID-19 started as a health emergency, but it is rapidly evolving into an employment crisis. There is
still uncertainty on how severe the economic impact of the pandemic will be. As things go, however, the drag
on the region’s employment could last longer than the epidemic itself. Beyond the immediate impacts on the
level of employment, the crisis is deepening and accelerating the transformation of jobs, bringing the future
closer. Going Viral: COVID-19 and the Accelerated Transformation of Jobs in Latin America and the Caribbean focuses on recent trends in the economies of the region that have been significantly changing the labor market: premature deindustrialization, the servicification of the economy, and the changing skill requirements of jobs as automation advances.
The findings of this report have important implications for economic policy. Some of these implications are
related to the productivity challenges that Latin America and the Caribbean was already facing after the end of
the “Golden Decade
