The Economic Commission for Latin America (known in the D.R. for its Spanish acronym, CEPAL) said that unemployment rate dropped in the Dominican Republic from 16.5% to 15.9% last year. CEPAL also indicated that the D.R. had the highest growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product in 1997, 8%, but that the country has the second highest unemployment rate in Latin America. It indicates that economic transformations have resulted in a net reduction of jobs. The countries with the highest unemployment rates in Latin America are Trinidad & Tobago, Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, Argentina, Barbados, Colombia and Venezuela. The organization has forecast that the Dominican economy will grow 6% in 1998.
