Urgent Challenge to Create 600 Million Jobs Over Next Decade: ILO
Tuesday, 24 January 2012, 22:58 IST
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GENEVA: The International Labour Organisation (ILO) today warned there is an "urgent challenge" to create 600 million jobs over the world in the next decade as one in three workers worldwide are either unemployed or living in poverty. According to the annual report on global employment by the ILO, the world faces the "urgent challenge" of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade in order to generate sustainable growth and maintain social cohesion. "After three years of continuous crisis conditions in global labour markets and against the prospect of a further deterioration of economic activity, there is a backlog of global unemployment of 200 million," the report, titled, 'Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a Deeper Jobs Crisis', said. Besides the global unemployment backlog of 200 million, 400 million new jobs will be needed over the next decade to absorb the estimated 40 million new job-seekers in the labour force each year, ILO said. Commenting on the findings, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said, "Despite strenuous government efforts, the jobs crisis continues unabated, with one in three workers worldwide -- or an estimated 1.1 billion people -- either unemployed or living in poverty." The report also said the world faces additional challenge of creating decent jobs for the estimated 900 million workers living with their families below the $ 2 a day poverty line, "mostly in developing countries". There are still 27 million more unemployed workers than at the start of the global financial crisis. Nearly 30 per cent of all workers in the world -- more than 900 million -- were living with their families below the $ 2 poverty line in 2011. Of these, 900 million working poor, about half were living below the $ 1.25 extreme poverty line. "These latest figures reflect the increasing inequality and continuous exclusion that millions of workers and their families are facing," Somavia said. The report called for targeted measures to support job growth in the real economy and warned that additional public support measures alone will not be enough to foster a sustainable recovery. "Policymakers must act decisively and in a coordinated fashion to reduce the fear and uncertainty that is hindering private investment so that the private sector can restart the main engine of global job creation," said the report.
Source: PTI