51 million jobs on the line – ILO

GENEVA – Up to 51 million jobs worldwide could disappear by the end of this year as a result of the economic slowdown that has turned into a global employment crisis, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said yesterday.

Under its most optimistic scenario, the UN agency said, this year would finish with 18 million more unemployed people than at the end of 2008, with a global unemployment rate of 6,1 percent. More realistically, it said 30 million more people could lose their jobs if financial turmoil persisted throughout this year, pushing up global unemployment to 6,5 percent, compared with six per cent last year and 5,7 percent in 2007. In the worst-case economic scenario, the Global Employment Trends report says 51 million more jobs could be lost by the end of this year, creating a 7,1 percent unemployment rate. ‘If the recession deepens in 2009, as many forecasters expect, the global jobs crisis will worsen sharply,’ the ILO said. ‘We can expect that for many of those who manage to keep a job, earnings and other conditions of employment will deteriorate.’ Caterpillar, Sprint, Philips, Texas Instruments and ING are among the companies that have cut thousands of jobs in response to the financial crisis and economic downturn that has spread around the world. The ILO’s previous employment estimate, released in October, was that 20 million jobs would disappear by the end of this year due to the financial crisis. Developing countries will suffer most from additional job losses, according to the ILO, whose governing structure includes governments, employers and workers’ groups. ‘Sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia stand out as regions with extremely harsh labour market conditions and with the highest shares of working poor of all regions,’ the report said. According to ILO estimates, North Africa and the Middle East had the highest unemployment rate at the end of last year, at 10,3 per cent and 9,4 per cent, respectively. Central and southeastern Europe and the former Soviet states ended last year with a jobless rate of 8,8 per cent, while the rate was 7,9 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and 7,3 percent in Latin America. East Asia fared best of the regions with 3.8 percent. Most job creation last year came from south Asia, southeast Asia, and east Asia, while developed economies including the EU lost about 900 000 jobs on a net basis. The ILO said that works projects sponsored by governments, such as those recently announced in Argentina, could help to create and sustain employment until the private sector started to rebound. National initiatives to construct and rehabilitate public infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and public buildings, could be especially helpful in poorer countries with high levels of joblessness, it found. The UN agency said: ‘While major capital-intensive new infrastructure projects take time to translate into increased employment, labour-based approaches can generate jobs and much-needed infrastructure quite quickly.’ The ILO noted that the World Bank had launched an infrastructure crisis facility that could support this work – Business Report