New ILO Report on Global Employment Trends 2003

World unemployment rate continues to rise,
reaching a new high of 180 Million

Friday 24 January 2003
( ILO/03/01 )

GENEVA (ILO News) - Two years of economic slowdown has pushed the number of unemployed to new heights worldwide, with little prospect of any improvement in the global employment situation this year, according to a new report entitled Global Employment Trends (1) issued here today by the International Labour Office (ILO).

"The world employment situation is deteriorating dramatically," says Mr. Juan Somavia, Director-General of the ILO. "While tens of millions of people join the ranks of the unemployed or the working poor, uncertain prospects for a global economic recovery make a reversal of this trend unlikely in 2003."

In the new study, the ILO estimates that the number of unemployed worldwide grew by 20 million since the year 2000 to reach a total of 180 million at the end of last year. In addition, the report says the weakness of labour markets has reversed recent reductions in "working poverty" achieved in the late 1990s.

Particularly hard hit have been women and youth, who often have jobs that are particularly vulnerable to economic shocks, the report says. What's more, unemployed workers pushed into informal jobs in search of work faced even more uncertainty due to the sector's near total lack of unemployment or social security coverage.

"This deteriorating world employment picture and the prospect of a weak or delayed recovery is very disturbing," Mr. Somavia said. "A continuation of these trends will dramatically increase the number of unemployed and working poor. A full-scale global recession could have grave consequences for the social and political stability of large parts of the world."

Among the major findings in the report:

• At the end of 2002, the number of working poor, or workers living on $1 or less a day, resumed its upward trend, returning to the level of 550 million recorded in 1998;
• While the global economic slowdown and post September 11 developments increased unemployment worldwide, Latin America and the Caribbean were hit hardest, with recorded joblessness rising to nearly 10 per cent;
• To absorb new entrants into the labour market and reduce working poverty and unemployment, at least one billion new jobs are needed during the coming decade to get on track for the UN goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015.
• "Our measures of unemployment largely record the jobless who have some form of social protection," Mr. Somavia said. "The record numbers on the dole worldwide is worrying enough, but even more disturbing is the evidence of worsening conditions in the informal economy of the developing world where the struggle to survive on poverty wages is getting even tougher."

Further information

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/pr/2003/1.htm

(1) Global Employment Trends, International Labour Office, Geneva, 2003, ISBN 92-2-113360-5. Price: 35 Swiss francs.

 

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