Welcome to Latinometrics. We bring you Latin American insights and trends through concise, thought-provoking data visualizations.
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Today's charts:
Who is the best ever in soccer?
LatAm’s currencies had a solid year
Uruguay’s drop in informal employment
Make sure you check out the comment of the week at the bottom!
Sports ⚽️
The world has been mourning the death of Brazilian soccer legend Pelé, who passed away last week after a battle with cancer.
Pelé grew up in a poor neighborhood in São Paulo. Despite his challenges, he loved soccer from a young age and spent hours daily practicing his skills, often in poor conditions.
As he got older, Pelé's talent for soccer began to shine. He played for his local team and eventually on Brazil's national team, leading them to an unprecedented three World Cup victories. Despite attempts by European teams to recruit him, Pelé decided to stay home and undoubtedly helped shape one of the most prominent soccer cultures in the world.
Pelé became known for his incredible speed, precision, and scoring ability, earning him the nickname O Rei (The King). He's considered by many to be the best player ever to play the sport.
However, with Argentina's recent World Cup win at the hand of Messi, some have been contending that Leo deserves the "greatest of all time" title. How is that possible if Pelé won three World Cups and averaged 0.84 goals per international match, while Messi has averaged 0.57?
The argument goes that despite Pelé's World Cup wins and superior goal-scoring record, Messi has played "in a tougher era, with many more games and much more pressure."
We're not sure we buy that idea: sport continuously evolves and gets more demanding, but that doesn't discredit the accomplishments of the past. Michael Phelps didn't earn the title of greatest swimmer ever until he surpassed Mark Spitz's medal count, though having considerably better swim times much earlier.
One thing is for sure: the world will miss Pelé's brilliance, which extended beyond his soccer career. UNESCO named him a Goodwill Ambassador, Queen Elizabeth II gave him a knighthood, he composed music, and served on several anti-corruption campaigns in Brazil as minister of sport.
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Currencies 💵💶💴💷
We checked every currency's 2022 performance against the USD with available data on Google Finance, and it turns out that 6 out of the top 10 are Latin American.
A strong currency is usually good for a country since it:
Increases the purchasing power of its citizens
Makes it cheaper to buy imported goods
Attracts foreign investment
In Mexico, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) hit an all-time high in the first 9 months of the year. Uruguay, home of the world's second strongest currency in 2022, saw an incredible 390% increase in FDI in the second quarter compared to the previous year.
The world's most-traded currencies (other than the US dollar) had a comparatively much worse year. These are the Euro (-6%), the Japanese Yen (-12%), and the Great Britain Pound Sterling (-11%). The poor performance further presented an investment opportunity for international businesses from rich countries in our region's economies.
So how did the currencies stay so strong? A robust export economy that served the world well during soaring commodity demand and prices. Also, Brazil and Mexico, for example, have lately been considered relatively safe markets to invest in that offer attractive interest rates. Latin American central banks have also been careful with printing money following the COVID pandemic, a widespread practice in prosperous economies.
We're lucky that some economic winds are blowing in our favor. As we start 2023, it's on us people to continue showing the world that we're worth their money and business and push our region forward!
Workers 👷♀️👷
Uruguay has outperformed all other Latin American countries when it comes to eradicating informality, cutting it in half in the span of a decade.
Informal workers don't pay taxes and are not covered by social security, meaning that, although employed, they don't have access to social benefits like healthcare or pensions.
Having said this, it's no secret that Latin America has a vast informal economy, with more than half of its population working informally. In this context, Uruguay has become an anomaly in the region, with only a 20% informality rate. This puts them closer to Europe, which has a 17% rate.
The improvement did not happen overnight, though. It's a result of decades-long efforts. What can other countries learn from Uruguay?
After starting the century with an economic crisis, Uruguay saw sustained economic success, outperforming other countries in the region. Labor formality is a natural byproduct of economic success, meaning that the economic context laid the groundwork for their decline in informality.
However, this could not have been achieved without successful policies by Uruguay's government in various areas.
First, in 2005 the country set up policies to reactivate collective bargaining aka negotiations between employees and employers on working conditions. This has led to stronger unions in the country, which have worked towards workers' inclusion into social security. Second, the government has introduced several tax reforms, including tax incentives for employers to integrate their workers into social security. Lastly, the government has introduced other social programs, such as unemployment insurance and healthcare modifications.
Even as the pandemic brought about an increase in informal employment across Latin America, Uruguay's informality surprisingly decreased even further by an estimated 3% during this period. This phenomenon is still being investigated; however, some experts have pointed to a generalized failure of small businesses in the country, driving labor into larger companies operating in the economy's formal sector.
Realize Latin America’s Potential 🚀
This week’s opportunity:
AT&T has recently opened 31 roles on in Brazil and Mexico, many of which are data-oriented.
Hiring Managers: Reply to this email if you’d like to feature an open role in our newsletter.
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That’s all for this week 👋
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Comment of the week, in response to our chart about Mexico’s incredible tourism inflow:
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Pelé, Currencies, and the Informal Economy
Dear Ernesto, I am a big fan of the blog.
I would recommend you update Pelé stats when it comes to number of goals scored. For instance you show him with about 750 goals yet everyone knows he scored over 1200 goals. The 1000th goal was a very largely celebrated milestone
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pele-scores-1000th-goal
While the charts are a great visual, I would recommend you update the the correct figures. His total number of goals is a recognized as a Guinness World Record. Cheers!