United States Department of State

There is plenty of work, although hiring managers have complained about local shortages of highly skilled workers in some fields. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (INEI), Peru’s employment informality rate in 2023 was 71.1 percent. Official GOP reports put the unemployment rate in 2023 at 5.4 percent. Unemployment in 2023 was most prevalent among people aged 14 to 24 (10.9 percent) and in urban areas (6.3 percent).

Workers in Peru typically receive a monthly salary. Some workers, such as miners, receive relatively high salaries and, by law, receive a share of company profits up to a maximum total annual amount of 18 times their basic monthly salary. The current statutory monthly minimum wage is 1,025 PEN/month ($270). In 2022, the INEI estimated the poverty threshold at 415 PEN/month ($106) per person, although it varied by region. Many workers in the unregulated informal sector, most of whom are self-employed, earn less than the minimum wage. Peruvian labor law mandates a 48-hour workweek with one day of rest and requires companies to pay overtime for more than eight hours of work per day and additional compensation for night work.

Peru does not have a specific unemployment insurance program, but the Compensation for Time of Service (CTS) requirement requires employers to deposit a month’s salary for each year of service into the employee’s CTS account. When employees stop working for an employer (voluntarily or involuntarily), they can access their CTS account. In addition, a terminated employee receives a monthly salary for each year of service, up to a maximum of twelve months.

In December 2020, in response to farmworker protests, Congress repealed a 2019 Emergency Order (Urgency Decree 043-2019) that expanded a policy originally designed to support investment in the agriculture sector. After Congress repealed the order, companies in the nonconventional export (NTE) sector, which includes textiles and some agricultural products, became subject to the same labor rules as other sectors, such as a five-year limit on successive short-term contracts.

Labor unions are independent of the government and employers. About five percent of the Peruvian private-sector workforce was unionized in 2022, according to a February 2024 report by the Peruvian Ministry of Labor, with unionization highest in the energy, gas, water, construction, and mining sectors (ranging from 36 percent to 25 percent unionization in these sectors). Union membership is more common in the public sector (about 16 percent). Labor law (No. 29497) requires labor conflicts to be resolved in less than six months, allows unions or their representatives to represent workers in court, requires that proceedings be conducted orally and videotaped, and relieves the employee of the burden of proving an employer-employee relationship.

Both unions and management can request binding arbitration in contract negotiations. Strikes can only be called after approval by a majority of all employees (union and non-union), by secret ballot, and only in defense of workers’ rights. Unions in essential public services, as determined by the government, must provide enough workers during a strike to maintain operations.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL) report, “The Worst Forms of Child Labor” Report ( https://www.dol.gov/agency/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/peru ), some children in Peru are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including mining and commercial sexual exploitation, sometimes through human trafficking. However, Peru made moderate progress in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in 2022, according to the latest USDOL report.