No end in sight to jobs crisis, says ILO

Fiscal austerity and tough labour reforms have failed to create jobs, leading to an “alarming” situation in the global employment market that shows no sign of recovering, the ILO said on Sunday.

By (Reuters)

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Published: Mon 30 Apr 2012, 11:32 PM

Last updated: Tue 7 Apr 2015, 12:16 PM

According to International Labour Organisation (ILO), advanced countries, especially in Europe, employment is not expected to return to pre-crisis levels of 2008 until the end of 2016 — two years later than it previously predicted — in line with a slowdown in production.

An estimated 196 million people were unemployed worldwide at the end of last year, forecast to rise to 202 million in 2012 for a rate of 6.1 per cent, according to the United Nations agency’s annual flagship report, “World of Work Report 2012”.

“Austerity has not produced more economic growth,” Raymond Torres, director of the ILO, Institute for International Labour Studies, told a news briefing.

“The ill-conceived labour market reforms in the short-term cannot work either. These reforms in situations of crisis tend to lead to more job destruction and very little job creation at least in the short-term,” said Torres, the report’s lead author.

Long-term jobseekers are demoralised and an average of 40 per cent of job seekers in their prime (aged 25-49) in advanced countries have been without work for more than a year, the report found.

Youth jobless rates have soared, increasing the risk of social unrest especially in parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The labour market overall has deteriorated over the past six months, with a very significant slowdown in the case of European countries, Torres said. Unemployment is growing in a significant number of countries, including more than two-thirds of European countries over the past year.

“The narrow focus of many eurozone countries on fiscal austerity is deepening the jobs crisis and could even lead to another recession in Europe,” he said.

“In addition, there is less progress happening in other parts of the world, for example the United States, where progress in reducing unemployment seems to be slowing down and this seems to be a trend,” he said. —


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