Decent work scarcer than ever

The world has the resources, wealth and knowledge to make economic, social and cultural well-being universal, according to the biennial UN report on the World Social Situation (RWSS) released on Nov. 26. However, the enjoyment of these rights is highly selective. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are persistently unemployed, in large part as a downside of economic liberalization, privatization and globalization, says the report prepared by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). "The benefits [of liberalization and globalization] tend to go to those people who are most skilled and best educated in the globalizing world," Johan Scholvinck, director of the DESA's Division for Social Policy and Development, told IPS. "Take, for example, international migration. If you are a well-educated person, it is very easy to move from one country to another, and you will benefit substantially. But if you're not, then you go to the negative side and there are many, many problems," he said. One major problem is unemployment, which over the last decade has increased by 34 million people, to a total of 195 million in 2006. Of the number of unemployed, exactly half are young people, even though they only represent 20 percent of the world population. Forced inactivity caused by a lack of education and illiteracy are the main reasons for this high figure, the report says. Meanwhile, 190 million children younger than 14 are active in some form of work. A quarter of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, but almost 70 percent live in the Asia and Pacific region. "We see a number of worries and trends. Globally, despite robust rates of economic growth, employment creation is lacking behind growth of the working aged population. From 1996 to 2006 the global output expanded by 3.8 percent per year, yet during the same decade the unemployment rate increased from 6 to 6.3 percent," said Sha Zukang, under-secretary-general for Economic and Social Affairs. Scholvinck told IPS, "Those who benefit from globalization tend to also earn very substantial incomes and salaries." The highest unemployment rate was noted in Middle East and Northern Africa. Compared to 1996, the number of people without a job decreased by 0.8 percent, but 12.2 percent must still survive without any steady income. According to Zukang, "Economic growth and job growth are not trending together, to the detriment of our societies and citizens. Meanwhile employment conditions are getting worse. There is a greater economic insecurity for most workers." Groups of workers are facing growing insecurity because of the steps taken by governments and employers all over the world to increase labor-market flexibility. "The main reason for increased flexibility that governments are introducing to deal with the issue of employment is that it has become increasingly difficult for governments to finance various schemes which are unemployment, insurance, pension schemes, etc.," Scholvinck said. "They are better off having schemes by which employees have to finance their own pension funds and health insurance, for example. In many ways, their security is diminished by having introduced the greater flexibility on workers. Flexibility is a nice word for saying that employees are no longer as secure as they were before," he stressed. Almost half of the global population that does have a job is part of the group working for two dollars a day. While that figure was significantly higher in 1996, last year, 1.4 million workers still did not make enough money to lift themselves above the two-dollar-a-day poverty line. That's why "the current report puts a sharp focus on employment as an issue of great importance to all countries, with a central role in reducing poverty," Zukang said. Asked whether it was possible to give a rough estimate of this year's jobless figures, Scholvinck responded: "These are the latest figures available and projections on unemployment rates are inherently very hard to determine. You have to keep in mind that these unemployment rates refer to the formal economy -- those who are employed in what we call the formal economy, rather then the informal one." "In a way, these numbers are misleading. They might actually be very low, because there is a huge amount of underemployment and unreported unemployment among those in the informal sector and those who are doing casual work," he said.