Nearly 202 million people were unemployed in 2013 around the world, some 5 million more than in 2012, because the number of jobs is not keeping pace with the growing workforce. As the world’s elite meet in Davos, Switzerland, this week to discuss global economics, the International Labor Organization (ILO) released its annual jobs report, showing how much work must be done to ensure workers can support themselves and their families.
Global Employment Trends 2014 also finds:
• Young people are especially hard-hit. Some 74.5 million people age 15–24 were unemployed in 2013, nearly 1 million more than in 2012.
• Vulnerable employment—self-employment or work by contributing family workers—accounts for nearly 48 percent of total employment. Workers in vulnerable employment have less secure income than wage and salaried workers, and limited or no access to health care and pension coverage.
• Regionally, most of the increase in unemployment is in East Asia and South Asia, which together represent more than 45 percent of additional jobseekers, followed by sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
• Informal employment remains widespread in most developing countries. Even in regions making reductions in poverty, lack of formal employment opportunities hinders further poverty reduction.
• Although the number of working poor continues to decline globally, some 839 million workers—the working poor—live on less than $2 a day.
• Some 23 million people are estimated to have dropped out of the labor market because they are discouraged about finding a job.