The United Nations International Labour Organisation (ILO) released its 2017 World Employment and Social Outlook report yesterday. And as per reports unemployment in India is expected to hysterically increase between 2017 and 2018 pointing the stagnation in job creation in the country.
The reports shows the economic growth trend of India is lagging behind. Increasing employment needs predicts both rising unemployment and worsening social inequality throughout 2017. As a result job creation in India is not expected to pick up pace in 2017 and 2018.
“Unemployment in India is projected to increase from 17.7 million last year to 17.8 million in 2017 and 18 million next year. In percentage terms, unemployment rate will remain at 3.4 per cent in 2017-18,” the report added. “Manufacturing growth has underpinned India’s recent economic performance, which may help buffer demand for the region’s commodity exporters,” it added.
“We are facing the twin challenge of repairing the damage caused by the global economic and social crisis and creating quality jobs for the tens of millions of new labour market entrants every year,” said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder. “Almost one in two workers in emerging countries are in vulnerable forms of employment, rising to more than four in five workers in developing countries,” said Steven Tobin, ILO Senior Economist and lead author of the report. This sort of statistic is even worse for emerging countries
However India had considerably performed well in terms of job creation in 2016, when a “majority” of the 13.4 million new employment created in Southern Asia happened in the country. India’s 7.6 per cent growth in 2016 helped Southern Asia achieve 6.8 per cent growth that year.
The report added that global unemployment levels and rates are expected to remain high in the short term, as the global labour force continues to grow. The global unemployment rate is expected to rise in 2017, to 5.8 per cent (from 5.7 per cent in 2016) – representing 3.4 million more unemployed people globally (bringing total unemployment to just over 201 million in 2017). Deep recessions in 2016 continue to affect labour markets in 2017.
The number of unemployed people in developing countries is expected to increase by approximately 3.6 million between 2016 and 2017 (during which time the unemployment rate in emerging countries is expected to climb to 5.7 per cent, compared with 5.6 per cent in 2016), it said. .
Those living in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will be facing the greatest risk. In contrast, unemployment is expected to fall in 2017 in developed countries (by 670,000), bringing the rate down to 6.2 per cent from 6.3 per cent in 2016.
On the other hand, Europe, especially the Northern, Southern and Western Europe, unemployment levels and rates are both expected to continue to fall, but the pace of improvement will slow, and there are signs that structural unemployment is worsening.
The ILO advocates policy approaches that address root causes of secular stagnation as well as structural impediments to growth.
“Boosting economic growth in an equitable and inclusive manner requires a multi-faceted policy approach that addresses the underlying causes of secular stagnation, such as income inequality, while taking into account country specificities,” said Tobin.
