• Poverty
• Child poverty
  • Child poverty
  • Child health
• Health, poverty and vulnerability
• Household poverty
• Growth and poverty
• Inequality
  • Inequality
  • Gender poverty reduction strategies
• Poverty analysis
  • Poverty analysis
  • Case studies
  • Defining poverty
  • Participatory wealth ranking
  • Poverty lines
  • Poverty and social impact analysis
  • Targeting
• PRSPs
  • PRSPs
  • Implementation
  • PRSP critique
  • Stakeholder engagement
• Rural poverty and livelihoods
• Social protection
  • Social protection
  • Food security and social safety nets
  • Impact of social protection programmes
  • Politics of social protection
• Urban poverty
  • Urban poverty
  • Key issues in urban poverty
• Also in this guide
• Poverty country profiles
• Poverty manuals
• Key issues
  • Key issues
  • Urban poverty
  • Subjective poverty
  • Growth and equity
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Poverty

Even though the global economy appeared to start growing again during the closing months of 2009, labour markets showed little sign of improving. The number of unemployed persons is estimated at 212 million in 2009, representing an increase of almost 34 million over the number of unemployed in 2007, with the bulk of this increase occurred in 2009.

This issue of Global Employment Trends analyses the impact of the global economic crisis on labour markets worldwide. It provides global and regional estimates and projections of unemployment, vulnerable employment and the incidence of poverty among the world’s workers.

Key findings include:

• global unemployment rate rose to 6.6 percent in 2009, an increase of 0.9 percentage points over 2007. However it varied widely by region, ranging from 4.4 per cent in East Asia to more than 10 per cent in Central and South-Eastern Europe (non-EU) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CSEE & CIS) as well as in North Africa
• global youth unemployment rate rose by 1.6 percentage points to reach 13.4 per cent in 2009 relative to 2007. This represents the largest increase since at least 1991, the earliest year for which global estimates are available
• overall impact of the economic crisis on women and men is far more important than the differences in impact between these groups
• preliminary estimates of growth in labour productivity, measured as output per worker, indicate that productivity levels fell in all regions except East Asia, South Asia and North Africa. The largest decline in output per worker occurred in Central and South-Eastern Europe (non- EU) & CIS,  therefore reversing part of the gains that were made in the first half of the decade
• as a result of declining output per worker, working conditions are deteriorating especially in regions where labour productivity was already low preceding the economic crisis, such as in Sub-Saharan Africa
• looking ahead to 2010, current projections show a continuation of high unemployment rates despite an increase in global economic growth. Labour markets will suffer further if the projected rate of economic growth for 2010 fails to materialise
  

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