Labour Act Review Raises Old Question: Where Have Belize's Workers Gone?

A government-commissioned review has warned that Belize's historically low unemployment rate may partly reflect discouraged workers leaving the labour force rather than Belizeans moving into productive employment.

The finding appears in the Draft Recommendations for Reform prepared under Phase I of the Government's Comprehensive Review of the Labour Act and submitted to the Ministry responsible for labour.

The Government engaged Trinity Consultancy Services Firm in March to undertake Phase I of the review through the Ministry of Immigration, Governance and Labour.

Under a section titled "Low Unemployment and Weak Participation," the consultants acknowledge that the decline in unemployment to approximately 2 percent by 2024–2025 represents a significant improvement, but caution that it does not provide a complete picture of Belize's labour market.

The report points specifically to a steep decline in labour-force participation, which it says fell from 70.1 percent in 2019 to 55.7 percent in 2024, while the employment-to-population ratio remained at approximately 55 percent.

It then reaches a conclusion that closely mirrors concerns The Reporter has raised repeatedly over Belize's declining unemployment rate.

According to the consultants, the reduction in unemployment appears to reflect, in part, the withdrawal of discouraged workers from active job searches rather than their movement into productive employment.

The distinction is important because the unemployment rate does not measure everyone of working age who does not have a job. It measures unemployed persons who remain in the labour force — generally those without work who are available for and actively seeking employment. Once people stop looking for work, they can leave the labour force and therefore no longer contribute to the unemployment rate.

That means a country's unemployment rate can decline even without those persons finding jobs.

The consultants also point to working-time patterns as further evidence of labour underutilization. Almost one-third of workers worked fewer than 40 hours in September 2024, while 10.4 percent worked at least 55 hours. The report says shorter working hours raise concerns about income adequacy and access to social protection, while excessive hours carry implications for occupational safety, health and work-life balance.

The findings add an independent assessment to a labour-market trend The Reporter has been examining since at least 2024.

In the latest installment of its "Where Have the Workers Gone?" series, published in June, The Reporter examined Statistical Institute of Belize data showing that the unemployment rate had fallen to a record-low 1.9 percent in April 2026, even as both employment and the labour force had contracted sharply.

SIB figures showed 166,894 persons employed in April 2026, compared with approximately 190,037 in April 2023 — a reduction of 23,143 employed persons, or 12.2 percent. Over those three years, the total labour force fell from 195,596 to 170,056, meaning approximately 25,540 fewer persons were either working or actively looking for work.

The June analysis also found that almost half of Belize's working-age population was outside the labour force.

The Labour Act review now goes further on one aspect of that question by explicitly identifying discouraged-worker withdrawal as part of its interpretation of the declining unemployment rate.

The draft recommendations have now been circulated by the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry to its members for review ahead of stakeholder consultations on the Labour Act reform process. The document remains part of Phase I of the review and is not a draft Labour Act.