During an interview on the El Despertador program on Monday 3 June, economist Miguel Ceara Hatton said that poverty and social exclusion rates had increased during the first four months of this year. He described the way that the country’s resources have been concentrated as “a national embarrassment.”
He said that in the first four months the economy only grew by 0.3%, the unemployment rate probably went over 16%, with scarcely 5,000-7,000 jobs being created each year in a country where 25,000 people were entering the job market annually.
He said that the number of jobs created is way below the government target, which is for the creation of 100,000 jobs a year, and says it is leading to a situation where poverty and exclusion are increasing. He concluded that the main problem with the Dominican economic model was that it did not generate jobs, and those that it did were low quality, which translates into very low salaries and inequality.
Economists say that the significant increase in taxation ordered by the Medina administration in December 2012 has slowed down the economy.
www.eldia.com.do/economia-y-finanzas/2013/6/3/115657/Economista-Ceara-Hattonasegura-que-aumentan-los-indices-de-pobreza-en-RD