Unemployment insights early 2024
As our economy slowly recovered from the pandemic, and more job seekers have found jobs all over the world, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has predicted that the unemployment rate will be rising this 2024. Growing inequalities and stagnant productivity are causes for concern, according to the ILO’s World Employment and social Outlook trends 2024 report.
There are only about 5 percent of the unemployed workforce worldwide according to ILO’s report. That is much better compared to the unemployment rate before the pandemic, but that is not set to last. An extra 2 million job applicants are expected to be searching for jobs over the next 12 months, said the ILO.
There are also findings from the UN that a new World Bank report has been released that the global economy is on its slowest half-decade growth in 30 years. In addition to the uncertain jobs market outlook, ILO noted that most of the world’s richest nations had seen living standards erode because of the inflation which is affecting almost everybody. This situation won’t be compensated quickly, says the UN agency.
There are big disparities happening in our world today. The ILO experts have underscored that there are significant differences between higher and lower income countries, with the job gap rate in 2023 was 8.2 percent in richer countries, there are 20.5 percent in poorer countries. There were also 4.5 percent unemployment rate in wealthier countries, 5.7 percent was the stat in poorer countries.
The ILO Director-General, Gilbert Houngbu, warned that “Falling living standards and weak productivity combined with persistent inflation create the conditions for greater inequality and undermine efforts to achieve social justice. And without greater social justice we will never have a sustainable recovery.” He called out for the workforce challenges to be tackled quickly and effectively.
The rates of informal work are expected to remain static, accounting to 58 percent of the global workforce in 2024.
There are also labour market imbalances that are happening everywhere. The return to pre-pandemic labour market participation rates has varied between the different groups. Women’s participation has bounced back quickly. But a notable gender gap still exists especially in developing countries. Youth unemployment rates continue to be a challenge. This remains high, especially among young women. The report also found that those people who have re entered the labour market post-pandemic tend not to be working the same number of hours as before while the number of sick days taken has increased significantly.
There are a lot of technological advancements that are happening in our nations. But that doesn’t help with productivity growth. It is still too slow to cope with the rising job seekers in the market.
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