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Sunday, Jun 20, 2004

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Global unemployment on the rise

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, JUNE 19. Rising unemployment may have done in the Vajpayee Government in the recent elections, but reports from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) show that global unemployment continued its relentless climb in 2003, despite a second-half economic recovery.

Unemployment hit a record 185.9 millions for men and women during 2003, rising sharply for young people.

The number of `working poor' remained at a high of 550 millions, according to the ILO's Global Employment Trends 2004.

The report, dealing with the job scenario of 2003, has highlighted that the number of people out of work and looking for work reached 185.9 millions, or about 6.2 per cent of the total labour force, the highest unemployment figure ever recorded. However, this was a marginal increase over the number for 2002, which was put at 185.4 millions.

Among the world's unemployed, some 108.1 millions were men. Among women, there was a slight decline, from 77.9 millions in 2002 to 77.8 millions in 2003. The hardest hit were some 88.2 million young people aged 15 to 24 who faced a very high unemployment rate of 14.4 per cent.

The report also questions the claim that the informal sector provides employment in large numbers.

It found that though the ``informal economy'' continued to increase in countries with low economic (GDP) growth rates, the number of `working poor'— persons living on the equivalent of $1 a day or less — held steady in 2003, at an estimated 550 millions.The report has identified that unemployment and underemployment continued to rise in the first half of 2003 because of a slow upturn in the industrialised world's economic situation, the impact of SARS on employment in Asia and the effects of armed conflicts.

The ILO has also outlined steps to tackle the situation. First is the suggestion to adopt `pro-poor' policies because lack of education, health and often empowerment inhibits poor people from using their own potential to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

The second suggestion is to promote growth and job creation because if jobless growth continues, it would threaten growth.

No country can sustain growing unemployment rates in the long run because diminishing demand would at some point limit economic growth, the ILO said.

Thus, creation of decent work would not only decrease poverty but, at some time, provide the essential precondition for growth.

The overall challenge was to absorb the 514 million new entrants to world labour markets and to reduce "working poverty" by 2015.

``How well the GDP growth will translate into productive and decent employment growth in 2004 and beyond, depends on the efforts of policy-makers to prioritise the importance of employment policies and put them on an equal footing with macro-economic policies,'' the ILO said.

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