Global unemployment hit 200mn last year says ILO, and it will worsen

Almost 200 million people around the world were unemployed last year, a report by the United Nations’ labour agency says.

A report by the International Labour Organisation says latest statistics show an increase of almost five million compared with the previous year 2012.

“This reflects the fact that employment is not expanding sufficiently fast to keep up with the growing labour force,” it adds.

The bulk of the increase in global unemployment is in East Asia and South Asia.

The two regions represent more than 45 per cent of additional job seekers, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. By contrast, Latin America added fewer than 50,000 to the global number — about one per cent of the total increase in unemployment in 2013.

“Overall, the crisis-related global jobs gap that has opened up since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2008, over and above an already large number of job seekers, continues to widen,” the report observes.

In 2013, this gap reached 62 million jobs, including 32 million additional job seekers, 23 million people that became discouraged and seven million economically inactive people that prefer not to participate in the labour market.

Set to worsen

“If current trends continue, global unemployment is set to worsen, albeit gradually, reaching more than 215 million job seekers by 2018,” the survey adds.

The UN says around 40 million new jobs are created every year, which is less than the 42.6 million people that are expected to enter the labour market.

“The global unemployment rate would remain broadly constant during the next five years, at half a percentage point higher than before the crisis.”

Good quality jobs crucial to drive development

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Global unemployment hit 200mn last year, says UN.

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