Antonio Broto |
Geneva (EFE).- Despite the multiple crises that the world economy is facing due to inflation, the high indebtedness of many economies and other factors, the global labor market is resisting and global unemployment figures will drop in 2023 to 191 million people ( 5.3% of the active population), one tenth less than in 2022.
This is indicated by the latest report on the global labor market of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which indicates, however, that this resilience is due especially to developed countries, while in developing economies the situation is more negative, which that widens the disparities.
According to the study, while the world labor market has recovered from the impact of the pandemic (in 2019 the global unemployment rate was 5.5%, two tenths more than in 2023), there are regions that have not yet recovered from the health crisis, in the case of North Africa, with a current rate of 11.2% (it was 10.9% before the pandemic).
Similarly, in Sub-Saharan Africa unemployment currently reaches rates of 6.3% when they were 5.7% four years ago, in North America 4% (3.9% in 2019) and in East Asia 4, 4% (still one tenth more than before the health crisis).
“Many developing countries continue to lag behind in the recovery process, particularly African and Arab nations that are unlikely to see their rates fall to pre-pandemic levels this year,” the ILO Deputy Director for Employment and Protection said when presenting the report. Social, Mia Seppo.
Recovery in Europe and Latin America
In contrast, the labor market has already recovered in Latin America and the Caribbean (unemployment reached 6.7% in 2023, but was 8% in 2019) or in Western Europe (6.3% currently and 7% before of the health crisis).
According to the ILO, the reduction in the overall rate is equivalent to one million fewer unemployed people in the world this year compared to 2022, which “is due to a greater than expected resilience of the labor market in high-income countries in the face of the economic recession”, according to the analysis of the organization.
In its previous forecast, at the beginning of this year, the ILO had even predicted that world unemployment would increase by three million people in 2023, but the trend seems to be the reverse.
“The global recovery of unemployment rates after covid-19 has been remarkably fast compared to previous crises, such as the global financial crisis of 2008-2009,” admits the ILO.
The employment gap, much more than unemployment
The organization qualifies that to the 191 million unemployed must be added another 262 million people who want to work, but cannot, so that the so-called “world job deficit” rises to 453 million people, 11.7% of the active population.
This percentage increases to 21.5% in low-income countries and even more, to 25.7%, in heavily indebted countries in that group of developing economies, warns the ILO.
“In other words, in those countries, one in four people who would like to work cannot do so, a problem that adds financial and fiscal obstacles for those economies,” Seppo stressed.
The employment deficit is also greater among women (14.5%) than among men (9.8%), underlines the study by the Geneva-based organization.
Social protection: much to do
On this occasion, the ILO is also studying one of the aspects of social protection, retirement pensions, which, although they cover 77.5% of global workers, only cover 38.6% in middle-income economies and in 23.2% of those with low income.
The ILO calculates that completing the financing of this social protection could have a cost for developing countries equivalent to 1.6% of their GDP.
However, this could contribute to an increase in national per capita income of 14.8% in 10 years, reducing the percentage of people living below the poverty line by six points.