The Organic Law for the Comprehensive Planning of the Special Amazonian Territorial District establishes the preferential employment regime as a mechanism designed to ensure that job opportunities generated within the Amazonian territory primarily benefit its resident population.
The preferential employment regime aims to ensure that job opportunities generated in the Amazon first benefit the people and communities of that region, through formal hiring obligations, verification mechanisms, and sanctions in case of non-compliance.
This obligation applies to all natural and legal persons, public, private, mixed, and community-based, that carry out activities in the region when a lack of skilled labor is verified in the area. These entities must ensure the following:
The regulations, developed by Ministerial Agreement MDT-2024-060, stipulate that recruitment processes must begin in the Socio-Employment Network and follow a territorial order of priority—parish and cantonal, provincial, and finally national—while also ensuring an inclusive approach that considers gender, youth, and Indigenous peoples and nationalities.
To determine who is considered Amazonian, the Law distinguishes between Amazonian people by birth, who belong to Indigenous peoples and nationalities native to the region and are born within its boundaries, and Amazonian residents, who can demonstrate six continuous years of residence in the area, voter registration in the last three electoral processes, or studies completed at Amazonian educational institutions, especially in the case of young people, in addition to the other requirements indicated in the law.
We can recommend the following to employers in the Amazonian Constituency:
1. Immediately implement the Public Employment Service tool for new vacancies in the Constituency;
2. Document searches in order of priority;
3. Request certification of non-existence of personnel when applicable;
4. Adopt inclusion measures (gender, youth, Indigenous peoples) and document the processes for auditing;
5. Verify compliance with requirements for Amazonian residents by birth and/or by acquisition;
6. Require community certification for individuals who can prove membership in Indigenous peoples and nationalities;
7. Ensure that job offers are disseminated locally;
8. Use the Ministry of Labor’s control mechanisms if non-compliance is detected; and,
9. Participate in comprehensive planning processes.
