As a result of the global economic downturn, more workers will be forced to accept lower-quality and poorly paid jobs this year, according to a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
In its latest assessment of the state of the labor market, the Geneva-based ILO warned that “high and persistent” uncertainty about the state of the global economy is depressing business investment, eroding real wages and pushing workers back into informal employment, which could: includes street trading, housekeeping or waste collection.
Overall, the organization predicts that global employment will grow at only half the rate in 2022 and just 1% in 2023. A slowdown would not only affect further progress in poverty reduction, but also halt previous gains in living standards. global workers who will have fewer opportunities for themselves.
“The current slowdown means that many workers will have to accept lower-quality jobs, often with very low pay and sometimes with insufficient hours,” warned the ILO’s Global Employment Outlook 2023 Trends report.
Economies around the world are suffering from geopolitical tensions, including the war in Ukraine, as well as supply chain disruptions and an uneven recovery from the Covid crisis. Together, these conditions have produced a period of stagflation for the first time since the 1970s, when the economy suffers from high price inflation and low growth.
The cost-of-living crisis, where incomes have failed to keep up with rising inflation, is also pushing people into absolute or relative poverty around the world, the ILO explains. Price inflation was reducing demand for goods and services from low- and middle-income countries, threatening employment and quality jobs before they fully recovered from the economic effects of the Covid pandemic.
The ILO says the continuing lack of better job opportunities, which began during the Covid crisis when low-income workers were disproportionately disadvantaged, is likely to worsen with the projected slowdown, “pushing workers into poorer quality work and depriving others of adequate social protection “. .
“Progress on poverty reduction over the past decade has largely faltered, and convergence in living standards and quality of work is stalling as productivity growth slows around the world,” the report said.
The ILO said it did not expect the decline in employment growth seen during the Covid crisis to recover until at least 2025, and raised further concerns about the projected slowdown in productivity, which it said was “essential to addressing the interconnected crises we face”. : in purchasing power, ecological sustainability and human well-being”.
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