Root Cause Problems/Employment purchasing power2

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Employment and purchasing power
Haiti has a labor force of around 4.1 million.

Seventy per cent of the population depends
directly or indirectly on agriculture, mostly small-scale farming.

13
The main sources of
employment are in agriculture and the informal sector.

Given that most agricultural commerce
can also be classified as informal, the United Nations Development Program(UNDP)
estimates that 96 per cent of the working population is involved in the informal sector.

14
Some jobs are provided by the export assembly sector, where mainly US-owned plants import
components which are assembled in Haiti.

Labor is the only value added for Haiti in this
sector, but wages are kept extremely low to maintain Haiti's cost advantage.

President
Aristide tried to raise the minimum wage in 1994, but this move was not well received by some
in international circles and by employers.

Wages in Haiti have suffered persistent decline.

The
only wage statistics available relate to the minimum wage. Its real value fell by 70 per cent
between 1981 and 2003.
15
The minimum wage in Haiti is currently 70 gourdes a day.
16
With the current exchange rate of
US$1 = 42 gourdes, this means that the minimum wage is less than $2 a day and maintains
workers below the poverty line established by the UN. And while wages in Haiti are very low,
the cost of living there is higher than in other countries below the $2-a-day threshold.

The
following are examples of some of the daily purchases a family might have to make, and their
costs (figures from October 2005):
a ride in Port-au-Prince on a tap-tap, the local form of transport: 10-25 gourdes,
depending on distance
a bucket of water: 5 gourdes
a small packet of bread rolls: 10 gourdes
one
(imported)
egg:
5-6
gourdes.

Since 1986, purchasing power in Haiti has been on the decline, a decline which has
accelerated since the mid-1990s.

Real wages have fallen, along with income in rural areas, as
national production has declined.

Inflation is high and the gourde is depreciating, so imported
food is becoming more unfordable as incomes fail to match inflation.

All of this has
extremely serious consequences for the Haitian population.

Lionne, April 24 2008, 5:59 PM

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