Assignment
Global unemployment hits record high Unemployment worldwide edged up to a record 185.9m in 2003 despite higher global growth, the International Labor Organization says in its employment trends report in January 2004. The unemployment increase, from 184.4m in 2002, largely reflected rising joblessness among young people, who faced an unemployment rate of 14.4% compared with 6.2% overall. The ILO estimates that the number of ‘working poor' in the world - those living on less than $1 a day - remained broadly static at an estimated 550m in 2003. Sluggish economic growth combined with Sars and job losses in travel and tourism pushed up unemployment and underemployment in the first half of 2003, the ILO says. The severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak alone may have cost East Asian countries 2m-6m jobs.
Though the stronger economic recovery that took hold in the second half of 2003 could, if sustained, improve the global employment picture this year, the ILO warns that many countries are far from generating the number of jobs needed if they are to meet the United Nations target of halving poverty by 2015. ‘The overall challenge is to absorb the 514m new entrants to world labor markets and to reduce working poverty by 2015, the report says. It urges ‘pro-poor' policies centered on job creation, especially for young people, accompanied by debt reduction and measures to improve access to rich-country markets for developing country exports. We can reduce poverty if policy makers stop treating employment as an afterthought and place decent work at the heart of macroeconomic and social policies, said Juan Somalia, ILO director-general.
The Middle East and North Africa emerges as the region worst hit by open unemployment, with an overall jobless rate of 12%. One in four people aged 15-24 is without a job. Countries in the region will have to grow much faster than in the past decade to absorb the almost 4m new entrants to the labor force annually and halve unemployment and working poverty, the report says. Sub-Saharan Africa will have to create nearly 8m jobs each year to absorb new jobseekers. ‘To halve unemployment and working poverty by 2015 would require the rate of GDP growth to triple, a rather unrealistic goal for most economies,' the report notes.
Question
1 What problems might result from a failure to tackle global unemployment?
2 How might governments and international organizations seek to reduce global unemployment?
The response should include a reference list. Double-space, using Times New Roman 12 pnt font, one-inch margins, and APA style of writing and citations.