In Latin America, labor markets face two main problems: high informality rates and low productivity rates (IDB, 2009). Data from the Inter-American Development Bank (SIMS, 2014) indicate that labor informality calculated as the percentage of workers not affiliated with social security affects on average 55% of the region's economically active population. Furthermore, in Latin America, the average level of productivity is only 25% of the productivity of the United States (Conference Board, 2015).

In Bolivia, the problems of informality and low productivity are even more acute. Indeed, with an informality rate of 81% (SIMS, with data from 2012), Bolivia has the economy with the third highest level of informality in the region, barely surpassed by Honduras (83%) and Nicaragua (81%). At the same time, Bolivia is among the countries with the lowest rates of labor productivity in the region. Data from the Conference Board (2014) indicate that labor productivity in Bolivia only reaches 9.4% of labor productivity in the United States and has only grown by 20% in the last 25 years (against 90% in Chile and a 60% in Peru for example).