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ILO / GLOBAL JOBS GAP
STORY: ILO / GLOBAL JOBS GAP
TRT: 2.34
SOURCE: ILO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 10 APRIL 2014, WASHINGTON DC
1. Exterior shot, IMF Headquarters
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Guy Ryder, ILO's Director-General:
"Since the crisis, what we've seen is the opening up of a massive jobs gap: 62 million jobs have gone as a result of the crisis and the problem is, if we don't act, it's going to get worse, not better. We're going to go to 75 million jobs gap by 2018. So it's time to react, it's time actually to put jobs and to put growth back at the heart of International policy making. It's time to give people a chance to get back to work. And we have the opportunity to do that.
We have the fiscal, the monetary opportunity to do that, we need to look at labour market policies which produce jobs-rich growth and start to close that enormous non-acceptable gap."
3. Cutaway, “Spring meeting sign”
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Guy Ryder, ILO's Director-General:
"Over the last 20 years at least, we have had a situation across the world where wages have simply not followed productivity increases, so you know, the battle of income has moved away from labour and towards profits and that has a result growing inequality in our societies. I think many people have seen in recent years; that's bad for our societies, our societies are under stress because they become more unequal.
But what's really coming into focus now is that this inequality is also bad for job creation, it's bad for economic growth, it is a break on the growth in our global economy that we need to close that jobs gap."
5. Cutaway, people inside the IMF’s building
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Guy Ryder, ILO's Director-General:
"We need to get our economies growing more quickly. It's very welcomed that the G20 finance ministers have set increased growth targets as a major plank of international policy making. I think it's going to take a bit more because we need more growth, but we need growth that is also job-rich. Jobs have to be at the center of the growth policy."
7. Cutaway, flags
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Guy Ryder, ILO's Director-General:
"Income inequality matters to ordinary people because it determines how they live. It determines their prospects in society, it often determines the prospects for their kids in society and the fact of the matter is: we can do better. And our economy will operate better if inequality comes down. This is not simply about individual interests although it is, it's about our collective capacity to build better economies, stronger societies. It matters individually, it matters to us all collectively."
9. Cutaway, street shot
In a statement delivered to the spring meetings of the 2014 IMF and World Bank, the ILO Director-General Guy Ryder warns of rising global unemployment and calls for measures to boost household purchasing power.
A massive global jobs gap that opened at the height of the financial crisis is not closing. Moreover, the gap will widen unless the global economy steps up the pace of growth to generate the jobs needed, said Ryder.
Ryder pointed out that if pre-crisis trends in employment growth had continued, 62 million more women and men would have been working in 2013 when global unemployment reached 202 million. Unless growth picks up, the jobs gap will widen to 75 million by 2018.
In 2013, the number of workers in extreme poverty declined by only 2.7 percent globally, one of the lowest rates of reduction ever seen over the past decade.
Ryder noted that income inequalities have also widened and the wage share in GDP has fallen in many countries, including the world’s largest economies where wages have lagged behind growth in productivity for over 20 years.
This trend was masked by unfettered household borrowing before the crisis and temporarily offset by financial market innovations that proved to be unsustainable. These long-term structural problems now weigh heavily on demand and slow down recovery.
The global economy must create many more jobs. Investment in infrastructure, support to small enterprises and boosting skills development, and restoring household purchasing power, particularly at the lowest income levels are essential to avoid falling into a low-growth trap, Ryder says.
Ryder welcomed the G20 Finance Ministers’ aim to lift GDP by 2 per cent or more over five years, but called for an integrated strategy for both the demand and supply side of labour markets that would lift growth and create the jobs needed for a full and sustainable recovery.
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