UN: 20 million more jobless from crisis

Published: Tuesday October 21, 2008

The global financial crisis will raise world unemployment to 210 million people by the end of next year, its highest rate in the past decade, the United Nations labour agency said yesterday.

That new figure will include at least 20 million who lose their jobs between now and the end of 2009, said officials of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

That will be the first time in a decade of record-keeping that the global total has been above 200 million people, said officials of the ILO.

Also yesterday, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, president of the UN General Assembly, said in New York that he would establish a high-level task force to suggest steps to reform the global financial system to reflect 21st century economic realities – including greater clout for developing countries.

Brockmann said there was growing recognition that the current financial turmoil could not be solved through piecemeal responses at the national and regional level but requires coordinated global efforts that are best led by the United Nations.

He announced that Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of the United States would chair the task force and take part in a panel on the financial crisis at UN headquarters on October 30.

In Geneva, Juan Somavia, director-general of the ILO, told reporters that global leaders needed to focus on the impact on individuals rather than just financial institutions when they devise rescue plans.

"We thought it was not good to talk about the financial crisis exclusively in financial terms," Somavia said.

"We have to talk about the financial crisis in terms of what happens to people and in terms of what happens to jobs and enterprises."

He said it is already clear that people are going to be hurt by the financial crisis and that measures should be taken to provide unemployment compensation and other social protection.

"If we have enough resources to pump into the financial system, this is not the moment to say, 'Yes, but we don't have the resources to care about people,"' said Somavia.

He said the first step in a global rescue plan remains getting out of "the credit paralysis."

"The financial system has to go back to its fundamental function," he said, providing credit to people with entrepreneurial spirit to set up a company that will produce goods and services and create jobs."


Source: Nation Newspapers
http://www.nationnews.com/story/308196685289823.php