A 600 million jobs challenge

The world faces the “urgent challenge” of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade in order to generate sustainable growth and maintain social cohesion, according to the 2012 annual report on global employment by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

“After three years of continuous crisis conditions in global labor markets and against the prospect of a further deterioration of economic activity, there is a backlog of global unemployment of 200 million,” says the ILO in its annual report titled “Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a deeper jobs crisis”. Moreover, the report says more than 400 million new jobs will be needed over the next decade to absorb the estimated 40 million growth of the labor force each year.

The Global Employment Trends Report also stresses that the world faces the additional challenge of creating decent jobs for the estimated 900 million workers living with their families below the US$ 2 a day poverty line, mostly in developing countries.

“Despite strenuous government efforts, the jobs crisis continues unabated, with one in three workers worldwide – or an estimated 1.1 billion people – either unemployed or living in poverty”, says ILO Director-General Juan Somavia. “What is needed is that job creation in the real economy must become our number one priority”.

Hungary is mentioned once in the report: "Introduction of 16% flat rate of income tax over two years; cuts to the public sector (reduction of wages, elimination of certain benefits); six-year tax for financial institutions; reduction of bureaucracy for investors; ban on foreign exchange mortgages projected consolidation period: 2011–13."