Global Unemployment increased by 5 million in 2013: ILO Report

Geneva, 21 January 2014: The International Labour Organization (ILO) published the annual report "Global Employment Trends 2014 ". The study presents the latest developments in the labor market, in particular the projections at regional and global level in the field of employment, unemployment, working poverty and vulnerable employment. The report also contains a number of policy recommendations in view of the new challenges that policymakers will face next year.

According to the report, global unemployment increased by 5 million people in 2013. The uneven economic recovery and successive downward revisions in economic growth projections have had an impact on the global employment situation. Almost 202 million people were unemployed in 2013 around the world, an increase of almost 5 million compared with the year before. This reflects the fact that employment is not expanding sufficiently fast to keep up with the growing labour force.

The bulk of the increase in global unemployment is in the East Asia and South Asia regions, which together represent more than 45 per cent of additional jobseekers, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. By contrast, Latin America added fewer than 50,000 additional
unemployed to the global number – or around 1 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 jobseekers, continues to widen. In 2013, this gap reached 62 million jobs, including 32 million additional jobseekers, 23 million people that became discouraged and no longer look for jobs and 7 million economically inactive people that prefer not to participate in the labour market.

If current trends continue, says the Report, global unemployment is set to worsen further, albeit gradually, reaching more than 215 million jobseekers by 2018. During this period, around 40 million net new jobs would be created every year, which is less than the 42.6 million people that are expected to enter the labour market every year. The global unemployment rate would remain broadly constant during the next five years, at half a percentage point higher than before the crisis.

According to the report, Young people continue to be particularly affected by the weak and uneven recovery. It is estimated that some 74.5 million young people – aged 15–24 – were unemployed in 2013; that is almost 1 million more than in the year before. The global youth unemployment rate has reached 13.1 per cent, which is almost three times as high as the adult unemployment rate.

Indeed, the youth-to-adult unemployment ratio has reached a historical peak. It is particularly high in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean and Southern Europe.

"What we need is a rethinking of policies. Greater efforts are needed to accelerate the creation of jobs and support businesses that create jobs", said ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder.
Source: ILO News