Unemployment is defined as absence of fruitful remunerative work for an individual who is willing to work. The later halves of 2007 and 2008 to begin with have seen considerable disruptions in the smooth functioning of the global economy. The US subprime crisis has unleashed a chain reaction of sorts. Inflation, slowing down of economic growth and rising unemployment are some of the problems plaguing the highly interlinked global economy.
Predictions of Unemployment Figures for 2008
As per an ILO estimate global unemployment in 2008 is projected to climb by around five million. New job creation may be low for developed nations as a fall out of the hike in oil prices. However, Asia is likely to maintain a fairly strong job growth in 2008 as estimated by the yearly “Global Employment Trends report”. The global slowdown is expected to push up the worldwide rate of unemployment to 6.1% in 2008.
Global Unemployment Facts for 2007
As reported by the ILO, in 2007 the international job market witnessed the creation of new jobs to the tune of 45 million backed by a 5% global GDP growth. However, number of unemployed people rose by 2.9 million. In 2007 worldwide unemployment figures stood at around 190 million.
Middle East countries and African nations recorded the highest unemployment figures in 2007. For the
Middle East countries 11.8% of the area's population in “working-age” were unemployed. The comparable figure for the African nations was 10.9% in the same reference period.
Unemployment figures for erstwhile Soviet republics and the Eastern European nations outside the EU
were at par with that of Latin America, where 8.5% of the working-age populace was unemployed.
As per the ILO report 5 among 10 employed people suffer from what is termed as “vulnerable employment”. They are in jobs, which do not call for any specific qualification. Around 16.4% of the world working population earn below $1 per day. That translates to around 487 million the world over. Around 1.3 billion of the world's population earn below $2 a day and lives under the poverty line.
Another angle to the global unemployment perspective is added by the issue of gender gap. Gender gap essentially refers to the ceilings women face as a part of the labor force in gaining fruitful employment.
In 2007 the percentage of women within working age who were either searching for a job or were already employed was 52.5. This was slightly below the comparable rate prevalent a decade ago.
The data points to two interesting and diverging trends. There has been an increment in the 'prime-age' participation coupled with a decline in participation of the youth. The latter phenomenon is due to an increased participation of women in education. Male participation rate in labor force in 2007 was 78.8% as compared to 80.4 % a decade earlier.
As reported by ILO in 2007 the global service sector recorded the highest employment growth, way ahead of the agriculture sector. The services sector accounted for 42.7% of global jobs in comparison to 34.9% by agriculture. The industrial sector, which had been on a downward trail from 1997 to 2003, had been slowly registering a pick up in recent times. In 2007 it accounted for 22.4% of the jobs created globally.
Policy Implications to Mitigate Global Unemployment
The prevalent global scenario essentially points towards the phenomenon of jobless growth. Economic growth across the world has failed to translate itself fully into a corresponding growth of new decent jobs.
The need of the hour is appropriate labor market policies, which will ensure that economic growth is involved in generating meaningful employment for the general population. Growth needs to foster development. Countries need to promulgate macroeconomic policies to promote the trickling down of the benefits of growth.
It may be noted that, different countries practice different statistical methods of analysis. So, international data comparisons of unemployment statistics need to be conducted after making the necessary statistical adjustments.