By
Emma Farge, GENEVA
Swiss
The global unemployment
rate has stabilized after declining for nine years since the crisis, the
International Labour Organization (ILO) said on Monday, and it could edge up
next year as the world economy slows.
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| FILE: Unemployed people line up to get a password for participation in a job opportunities event in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 26, 2019 |
The rate
stood unchanged at 5.4% in 2019, or 188 million people, and is expected to
remain there in 2020 and rise to 5.5% in 2021, the ILO said in its annual
report.
“This means
that the gradual decline of the unemployment rate observed between 2009 and
2018 appears to have come to a halt,” it said, citing a world economic
slowdown, especially in manufacturing.
Even for
those with jobs, it is becoming harder for many to live better lives, or exit
poverty, a trend Director-General Guy Ryder described as “extremely worrying”
with “very profound and worrying implications for social cohesion”.
“Persisting
and substantial work-related inequalities and exclusion have prevented them
(millions of people) from finding decent work and better futures,” Ryder told
journalists.
The ILO said
that about 470 million people in total have insufficient paid work, a new data
set which includes not only the unemployed but also the under-employed and
those lacking access to the labor market.
The report noted the
difficulties faced by young people in getting jobs, with 22% of those aged
15-24 not in employment, education or training.
It also
noted the rate of female participation in the workforce remained at just 47%,
27 percentage points below the male rate. “We are not going where we want to
go,” said Ryder, referring to a commitment by G20 leaders in 2014 to reduce the
gender gap in the workforce.
The global
working poverty is declining, the report said, but that masked limited progress
in low-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the report said.
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