G20 Pittsburgh summit

The jobless recovery

by Brent Gregston

Article published on the 2009-09-20 Latest update 2009-09-20 15:22 TU

A woman looks at job advertisements in the window of a recruitment agency in Manchester, north-west England
(Photo: AFP)

The global economy has moved back from the brink of financial catastrophe but a global jobs crisis shows no sign of easing

“A recovery may be in sight,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says in its annual employment outlook, “but the short-term employment outlook is grim.”

The world’s trade unions have issued a warning in the form of a Pittsburgh Declaration saying the chances of real economic recovery are under severe threat. 

According to the ITUC,  governments must “do much more to arrest the plunge in jobs as tens of millions of people, especially young people and those in precarious jobs, find themselves facing a future without work."

Some labour leaders accuse the G20 of doing everything to protect bank profits, whatever it costs the people of the world. 

For the UN's International Labor Organization (ILO), there is no global economic recovery until there is "an upturn in job recruitment and a downturn in unemployment."

The ILO says that the number of jobless people in the world should soon hit a record 219 million to 241 million, some 39 to 61 million more than in 2007. Some 45 million young people are also expected to join the workforce annually, further swelling the demand for jobs.

The OECD says that unemployment among its 30 member nations would rise to nearly 1ten per cent by the end of 2010, above its previous post-1970 peak of 7.5 per cent during the second quarter of 1993.

Unless governments do more, the international organisation argues, "there is a danger that high jobless rates will persist beyond 2010 in advanced economies".   

In the US, the White House claims the 787-billion-dollar (535 billion-euro) economic stimulus bill passed earlier this year has saved or created one million jobs so far.

But that is little consolation to the seven million people who have lost jobs in the US, in what economists call the worst recession since the Great Depression. There are now fewer jobs to be had than in 2001, even though 12 million new workers have joined the labour force.

The US President’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, has warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay “unacceptably high” for years to come. If he is right, it will be hard for Barack Obama to convince Americans that he’s beating back the recession.

A weak economic recovery cannot replace the millions of jobs that have vanished.