Global jobs growth will halve in challenging 2023: ILO

Global employment growth is expected to slow down sharply to 1% this year compared to 2% in 2022, hit by the economic fallout of the war in Ukraine, high inflation and tighter monetary policy, the International Labour Organization (ILO) says on Monday.

At the same time, the number of unemployed people in the world is expected to rise by 3 million to 208 million in 2023, while inflation will eat into real wages, the ILO said in a report on global trends.

The scarcity of new jobs will hit countries at a time when many are still recovering from the economic shock of the global pandemic and the coronavirus is tearing through China after Beijing lifted tight lockdown restrictions.

“The slowdown in global employment growth means that we don’t expect the losses incurred during the COVID-19 crisis to be recovered before 2025,” said Richard Samans, Director of the ILO’s Research Department and coordinator of its newly published report.

Progress in reducing the number of informal jobs in the world is also likely to be reversed in the coming years, the ILO said.

The global jobs forecast is lower than the previous ILO estimate of 1.5% growth for 2023.

“The current slowdown means that many workers will have to accept lower quality jobs, often at very low pay, sometimes within sufficient hours,” says ILO.

“Furthermore, as prices rise faster than nominal labour incomes, the cost-of-living crisis risks pushing more people into poverty.” The situation could worsen further if the global economy slows down, ILO added.