The world faces a huge challenge of creating productive jobs for its expanding labour force, says a new study by three ILO economists. This challenge is global in three ways.
First, inadequate availability of productive jobs is now a worldwide phenomenon, affecting both North and South.
Second, global forces such as cross-border flows of trade, capital and labour now have important consequences for employment in individual countries.
Third, international economic policies are now almost as important as national policies for expanding opportunities for productive employment in less developed countries, where most of the world’s workers live and where almost all of its new workers will live.
The study sets out in detail the nature and magnitude of this employment challenge. It provides an empirical assessment of the current employment situation in the world, a review of developments since 1990, an analysis of the interactions among structural factors, global forces and national policies that have affected employment, and ideas on required policy responses at international and national levels.