Minaya, Auri (2026). Tables and Figures for: Salaried Labor Costs in the Caribbean. IDB Open Data. https://doi.org/10.60966/0h0ngzf0

1. English

Country

What is this dataset?

The tables, figures and annex behind the IDB technical note "Salaried Labor Costs in the Caribbean". It is the data the note is built on, not the note itself. The note computes for the Caribbean the three labor cost indicators already available for Latin America, so that the two regions can be compared.

What does it measure?

Three indicators of the cost of formal salaried labor. The average non-wage cost of salaried labor (NWC) gathers the costs of a formal job other than the wage — mandatory contributions, bonuses, paid leave and job-security provisions — as a share of the average formal wage. The minimum cost of salaried labor (MCSL) is the full cost of employing a worker at the minimum wage, as a share of GDP per worker. The cost of formalizing informal labor (CFIL) is the extra cost of employing an informal worker formally, as a share of the informal wage.

What does it contain?

Three tables and the two original Excel workbooks. The indicator table breaks each indicator into its components for every country and for the Caribbean and Latin America averages, with contributions also split between employees and employers. The minimum-wage table follows the minimum wage in the Caribbean and in the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. The parameter table holds, for each country, the macroeconomic inputs, the wages, and the statutory contributions and entitlements used in the calculations, each with its source.

Which countries are included?

The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. The Caribbean average is the average of these countries. The Latin America average covers the Latin American countries for which labor cost data is available, excluding Venezuela for the minimum cost and the cost of formalization. The minimum-wage series compares the Caribbean countries other than Guyana with Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

What time period does it cover?

The three indicators are measured for 2023, using the wages, GDP and regulations in force on December 31, 2023. The non-wage cost is also projected to 2025, using the regulations in force on August 1, 2025 with wage and GDP data for 2024; the annex parameters are the inputs to that projection. The minimum-wage series runs from 2015 to 2023.

How should the values be read?

The indicators and their components are fractions of their base: a value of 0.235 in the data is 23.5 percent. The non-wage cost is a share of the average formal wage, the minimum cost a share of GDP per worker, and the cost of formalization a share of the informal wage. In the annex, monetary values are in US dollars at purchasing power parity unless a local currency is named, entitlements are in days, and firing notice and severance pay are calculated for a worker with five years of seniority. The minimum-wage series is in 2021 PPP dollars, with an index equal to 100 in 2015.

How was the data collected?

From a review of each country's labor and social security legislation, harmonized under the methodology of Alaimo et al. (2017) and Alaimo, Altamirano and Minaya (2026). The annex names the source of each parameter, usually the law or regulation that sets it. GDP, purchasing-power-parity conversion factors and employment come from World Bank data; wages from official household and labor force surveys, administrative data and the IDB's harmonized household surveys; and the minimum-wage series from the International Labour Organization's statutory minimum wage data.

How can it be used?

To compare the cost of formal salaried employment across Caribbean countries and against the Latin American average, to see which components — contributions, bonuses, leave or job-security provisions — account for the differences, and to trace each estimate back to the statutory parameters and wages behind it.

In what format is it available, and under what licence?

The tables can be queried through the data portal and downloaded as CSV, and both workbooks are available as Excel files. It is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), which allows sharing and adaptation, including commercially, provided appropriate credit is given.

How do I cite it?

Use the citation shown on this page, which names the author, the year, the title, IDB Open Data as the publisher, and the dataset's DOI.