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Urgent action is needed to tackle the job crisis globally and the recovery in aggregate demand is the single best cure for unemployment, Head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Labor Organization Director-General Juan Somavia and Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
In a joint opinion piece published in the Spanish newspaper El Paris on Sunday ahead of the joint-conference hosted by the ILO and the IMF in Oslo, Norway, they said that the latest data on unemployment showed that some 210 million people are out of work globally, representing an increase of 30 million since 2007, which is the highest level of official unemployment in history.
"An economic recovery that does not provide employment opportunities will mean nothing to most people," the trio wrote. "We must act together now to tackle the jobs crisis."
"A recovery in aggregate demand is the single best cure for unemployment," they said. Many economies now faced the need to reduce their public indebtedness, but this should be done without impeding growth and employment, they added.
Another way to address the crisis was by undertaking targeted programs to help job seekers and ease pain in job markets, they said. Directing government subsidies towards the most vulnerable groups will also contribute towards this cause.
The Oslo meeting is intended to evolve consensus on more focused and sustained efforts to face the job crisis. With 45 million new job seekers entering the global labor force each year, the problems exacerbated by the crisis simply will not diminish without these efforts, according to them.
Three quarters of the increase in the number of unemployed people has occurred in the advanced economies, with the remainder among emerging markets. Young people were hard-hit by the job crisis.
Persistent unemployment has grave consequences such as loss of earnings, reduced life expectancy, and lower educational achievement for their children. Also, joblessness can affect attitudes in a manner that increases tensions and reduces social cohesion, they observed.
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