Inequalities, already exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis, are growing even more.

The current slump in the global economy will force more workers into jobs that are poorly paid, precarious and lacking in social protection, the ILO warned on Monday.

The International Labor Organization also forecasts a slight increase in global unemployment this year, by around 3 million people, to 208 million (global unemployment rate of 5.8%), marking a reversal of the decline seen in 2020. to 2022.

In addition, due to inflation, as prices rise faster than nominal labor incomes, more people are at risk of being pushed into poverty, according to the ILO's annual employment report.

This trend comes on top of the significant revenue declines seen during the Covid-19 crisis.

Episode of “stagflation”

New geopolitical tensions, the conflict in Ukraine, the uneven recovery from the pandemic and the persistence of bottlenecks in global supply chains "have created the conditions for an episode of stagflation, simultaneously combining high inflation and weak growth , for the first time since the 1970s,” the report finds.

“Projections of slower economic growth and employment in 2023 imply that most countries will not fully recover to pre-pandemic levels,” ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo points out in the preface. .

Job growth is expected to slow markedly this year, to 1% (from 2.3% in 2022), a significant downward revision of 0.5 percentage points from the previous projection.

Overall jobs deficit

"Due to the slowdown in global employment growth, we do not expect to be able to compensate for the losses suffered during the Covid-19 crisis before 2025", indicates the director of the ILO's research department and coordinator of the report, Richard Samans, in a statement.

Unemployment, however, is expected to rebound only moderately this year as much of the shock is absorbed by rapidly falling real wages amid accelerating inflation, rather than job cuts, the ILO says.

The report also identifies a new aggregate measure of unmet employment need: “the aggregate jobs gap”.

In addition to unemployed people (205 million in 2022), this measure includes people who want to work but are not actively seeking employment (268 million), either because they are discouraged or because they have other responsibilities, of a family nature for example.

Boost training and education

Last year, this global jobs gap stood at 473 million, more than in 2019. This jobs gap is particularly large for women and in developing countries.

“The current slowdown means that many workers will have to accept lower quality jobs, often very poorly paid, sometimes with insufficient working hours”, also indicates the ILO.

15-24 year olds in particular face serious difficulties in finding and keeping a decent job.

Their unemployment rate is three times that of adults.

Despite the general slowdown, some countries and sectors remain exposed to the risk of a shortage of skilled labour.

The ILO is therefore calling for a sharp increase in investment in education and training as “two thirds of working young people in the world lack basic skills”.

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  • Economy

  • Ilo

  • salary

  • Job

  • Work

  • Precariousness

  • Poverty

  • Wage inequalities