The job crisis in Latin America: A role for multinational corporations in introducing more labour-intensive technologies

Latin America presently faces a critical unemployment problem. A major cause has been an emphasis on ‘maximum-growth’ models and ‘sophisticated’ industrial production techniques rather than on programmes and processes which utilize human resources more fully. A variety of factors-economic, technological, political, and cultural-accounts for the proliferation of these inappropriate technologies, but possibilities exist in most industries to adapt them so as to employ more labour economically. To date, multinational corporations have done little in this field, but Latin American governments can and must prevail upon them to contribute to a resolution of the unemployment problem.