Employment Situation in Latin America and the Caribbean is a twice-yearly report prepared jointly by the Economic Development Division of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Office for the Southern Cone of Latin America of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic led to an unprecedented crisis in the region’s economies and in its labour markets, where the recovery has been slow, partial and uneven. However, as noted in the first part of this report, there were favourable changes in the main indicators of these markets in the first half of 2022. First, in the second quarter of 2022, the employment rate returned to the level seen before the crisis and the unemployment rate fell 2.8 percentage points compared to the year-earlier period to 7.3%, lower than the pre-pandemic level. Similarly, the participation rate improved, although it is still below the level seen prior to the health crisis. Beyond the difficulties posed by the current labour market situation, the region’s economies face the challenge of reversing the weak growth in productivity and investment registered since the debt crisis.