The global number of unemployed reached 202 million people whilst prospects for the future are dim

ILO is releasing today its new report entitled "Global Employment Trends 2014".  The report calls for a rapid transformation towards employment friendly policies aiming at increasing workers' income, strengthening economic growth and employment opportunities, consolidating social protection and encouraging a shift towards formal economies in the emerging as well as developed economies.  The report notes that global markets are still stumbling despite a clear but slow economic improvement.  In addition, the number of unemployed globally has increased in 2013 and reaching 202 million people whilst the average unemployment rate remains high having reached 6%, and mainly concentrated in East Asia, South Asia, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.  The report also highlights a continuous trend of decreasing women's economic participation in East Asia where women occupy only 2 out of every 5 new jobs created.

The report insists on the importance of integrating the youth population in the work force especially since the total number of unemployed who are less than 25 years of age has globally reached 74.5 million people and that the global unemployment rate of young people is 13%, i.e. twice as high as the global average.
  According to the report, the job markets in developed countries and in the EU have not scored any improvement in 2013.  Meanwhile, the average economic growth in the MENA region in 2013 was less than what is needed to create enough new jobs to absorb the population growth in the region thus scoring one of the highest unemployment rates worldwide.    The ILO report also noted that there is a dearth of paid employment opportunities in Sub Saharan Africa where the rate of employment in marginal work in 2013 was the highest in the world.

According to Raymond Torres, the Director of the International Institute for Labour Studies at the ILO, economic improvement in the world economy will not be sufficient to address the root causes of the crisis worldwide.  He added that in the near future, the global economy will most likely to continue growing at a slower pace compared to the pre-crisis period.  This will very much hamper the needed task of creating 42 million new jobs yearly in order to absorb the newcomers into the world job sector.
Source: Al-Akhbar, Al-Hayat  21 January 2014