ASUNCION (EFE).— On the first anniversary of Paraguayan President Santiago Peña’s government, hundreds of Paraguayans from the countryside and the city demonstrated yesterday in this capital and called on the president to work on social policies that promote employment and agricultural production.
With the slogan “We are worse off, they are the crisis”, farmers, students, workers and young people filled the central streets of Asunción in response to the call of the Paraguay Pyahura Party (PPP).
“There are small producers who cannot sell their products, there are young people who want to study and work and cannot, there are many families who go to health centres and cannot find an answer to their ailments,” said Ermo Rodriguez, the general secretary of the PPP, a movement with a particularly rural social base.
The leader complained to the president that the macroeconomic stability he has maintained during his first year of administration “is proudly presented as statistics, but that is not evident in people’s pockets.”
“What good does it do to maintain or sustain a macroeconomy? However, the majority lives in poverty, in misery, in need. This is very contradictory, and that is where state policies are needed that really transform this reality.”
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), the unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2024 in Paraguay was 6.4% (195,948 people), compared to 5.8% recorded in the same period in 2023.
Furthermore, 2023 closed with 62% of the employed population as informal workers.
Rodríguez also called for guarantees of agrarian reform and access to land for farmers, more industrial complexes to boost job creation and greater investment in health, education and housing.
The protest, which ended with a rally in the Plaza Uruguaya in the center of Asunción, was also attended by former opposition senator Kattya González, who was dismissed by the ruling majority of the Colorado Party for alleged “undue use of influence.”
#demand #employment #Paraguay
2024-08-22 23:06:28
