Tough Times Ahead for Labour Market and Global Trade

A New ILo Report Warns of High Global Unemployment Levels in Coming Years. It Also Makes Special Mention of the Vulnerably Employed.
 

- Shreerupa Mitra-Jha

US president Donald Trump may have seized the job of running the world’s most powerful government with a promise of bringing work back to American shores, but if international predictions are anything to go by then supporters of Mr Trump should be in for a nasty surprise.

The International Labour organisation (ILO) released its annual World employment and Social outlook (WESO) report for the current year on January 13. The results are not heartening.

“Growth continues to disappoint, both in terms of its level but also in terms of its ability to make important inroads to making growth more inclusive,” the report says.

The global unemployment levels and rates are “expected to remain high” in the short term, even as the global labour force continues to grow. From 2016 to the current year, there will be 3.4 million more unemployed people globally, bringing the total unemployment to just over 201 million in 2017. However, the global unemployment rate is expected to rise modestly this year, from 5.7 percent in 2016 to 5.8 percent in 2017. This rate is expected to be relatively steady in 2018 but the numbers of people who are in search of employment will outstrip job creation, which will result in an additional 2.7 million unemployed people in 2018.

However, if lower consumption and investment demand – secular stagnation – intensifies, then global unemployment would rise by an additional 0.3 million in 2017 and almost 1 million in 2018, the UN’s labour agency warns.

“Many of the recent labour market dynamics reflect both cyclical factors and structural factors – e.g., low productivity growth and widening income inequality – which may lead to secular stagnation,” the report says.

Unemployment in developed countries, right-wing politics