[Excerpt] For 2002, the region’s GDP growth rate is expected to fall by -0.8%, while ILO projections indicate that the region’s GDP should grow 3% in 2003, thus permitting the region’s urban unemployment to drop to 8.6%, still very high, but closer to rates achieved in the last years of the previous decade. No symmetrical effect in terms of pushing down the decent work deficit should be expected, however. The region needs to grow by at least 4% annually if a rise in both unemployment and lack of social protection is to be avoided. The experiences garnered from frequent crises in the past indicate that in periods of economic growth or boom the labour market’s basic variables recover more slowly than the pace at which they deteriorate at times of contraction or recession.