The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has presented its new regional economic survey, placing the relationship between growth, productivity and high informality at the centre of its analysis.

ECLAC announced before the 20 August launch that the Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean 2026 would include updated projections for 2026 and 2027 as well as analysis of economic activity, employment, inflation and fiscal and monetary policy. The UN's media reports index identifies the published survey's focus as "Growth and productivity amid high informality".

The wider question is what growth means when a large share of work remains insecure, weakly protected or excluded from social insurance. Country rankings and headline forecasts depend on the final ECLAC tables and definitions, and regional aggregates say little on their own about whether proposed formalisation policies improve livelihoods for workers, cooperatives and employers in practice.