Panama's Unemployment Future Uncertain
(thepanamareport.com) Unemployment is becoming a hot issue in Panama, where a large portion of the nation's work force has been occupied with the construction of its real estate boom, and is thus unpredictable regarding the future of a slouching investment market. About five years ago, Panama's unemployment rate was high, around 15%. At the end of 2008, it was marked at 5%, which is a huge improvement, fueled heavily by the real estate/construction boom. The majority of the nation's unskilled workers were put in harnesses and strapped atop construction sites: a handful of whom died because safety was not a priority.
Labor Minister Benjamin SalamÃn was quoted recently claiming that Panama has sufficient back-up plans should the world continue to slip into financial crises, suggesting that the Canal Expansion and tourism industry will create enough new jobs to replace the assumed quantity (which could vanish with the real estate bust). Panama's a small country of 3 million+ people, so newly created jobs in the public works sector do have a proportionally large impact.
The other question to ask, as we so often do in Panama, is whether these numbers are accurate? As Eric Jackson of The Panama News pointed out back in 2007, the definition of "jobs" at one point stretched as far as people selling sewing kits and washcloths at traffic stops. Around that time, you could occupy yourself by picking bellybutton lint and apply for social security. Would washing car windshields qualify? How about sitting on the corner and simply asking folks for loose change? Would that constitute a Panama job?
I once found myself seated in an office answering questions from a man who wore red-sole shoes. I know this because he was leaned back with his feet crossed up on the desk in a sort of relaxed executive position. I was interviewing for an ambiguous job at a sports marketing agency, the ad for which I had come across in the local newspaper under the heading, Like Sports? How does $20/hr sound to you?
Umm, yes I do, and that sounds amazing, I muttered to myself while circling the classified ad with a thick red pen. I was unemployed at the time and felt blessed to have stumbled upon such a perfect-fitting career.
The interview itself ran divergent from other interviews I had gone through, primarily because I felt the man was doing it for the first time. "Tell me about your time at Princeton," I remember him saying, to which I clarified I hadn't actually attended Princeton University but rather simply grown up in the town. "OK, interesting," he said, as if my ability to think quick on my feet may be of use. "Well in that case, tell me...a couple sentances about every job you have ever held."
It's not something you think about often, every job you have ever held. Unlike recollecting sexual partners or cars you once owned, work rarely conjures up fond memories which is, I suppose, why people don't sit around and make photo albums of ex-bosses or co-workers. But after giving it some thought, I started naming my various jobs which read not unlike a laundry list of punishment or reprimand: kindergarten camp counselor, French fry cook, woolens vendor, babysitter, paper pushing bitch for marketing director at advertising agency...etc.
More surprising than my ability to recall all my previous employers was the man's interest in what he called my "vast life experiences." Why, they are vast, aren't they? I thought to myself.
He hired me on the spot and told me to show up the next morning at 6 AM. I was extremely excited driving home, which in hindsight was about as appropriate as winning a charity luncheon with Ayman al-Zawahri. I turned up the volume on the radio and sang with triumph, the words to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On until a confused gnat flew directly down my throat and I was forced to cough the chorus.
The next morning, I showed up and was handed the keys to a giant moving truck, a walkie-talkie, and a set of indecipherable maps that appeared to have been printed off line. I would have been no less surprised to receive a gym bag with some box cutters and clown masks. I'm sorry, I wanted to ask. But has this job been approved by the Department of Homeland Security?
"Take old Nelly here," my new boss told me, pointing to the big truck, "to the Summer Sizzle Lacrosse Tournament, set up the shooting contest, and make sure no one gets hurt."
Nelly? Summer sizzle? A shooting contest?
Once I made it to the tournament, I opened the back door and found a large, deflated rubber blow-up structure, several generators, and two industrial fans used, presumably to bring the thing to life: in looking back, probably one of the defining moments of my existence. Scampering around from side to side, I must have looked like an ant trying to move a bag of party balloons. After a day of running little kids through a moonbounce-type lacrosse shooting contest, I respectfully returned the truck to its parking spot and requested the office delete my file and never call me again to the day I die.
While, in the traditional sense of the word, I had spent the day operating the Summer Sizzle, the experience truthfully more resembled a type of Sicilian torture. I was paid not in money but in large cases of Mountain Dew that appeared to have been left over from a previous event. Define a job, I challenge myself in recollecting that day. If we're talking about an activity that's performed in exchange for some kind of compensation, then yes this was one, but if we're talking about an activity that actually requires some sort of skill or formality or contribution to the community than I believe I reamined duly unemployed.
