Tag: jobs

OECD joblessness fell in November but stays above pre-pandemic level – dpa international

Grocery shopping in a supermarket in Ireland, where restrictions have forced many businesses to close for longer than elsewhere (Simon Roughneen)

DUBLIN — Unemployment among the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) fell to 6.9 per cent in November, the group’s secretariat reported on Wednesday. That is down from 7.1 per cent the month before, but still 1.7 percentage points above pre-pandemic levels. Overall, 45.5 million people were listed as unemployed across the OECD’s 37 member states in November, 10.7 million more than in February, the last month before governments imposed widespread restrictions in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The OECD said that unemployment among the eurozone countries decreased slightly from October to November, from 8.4 to 8.3 per cent, after month-on-month joblessness fell in Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal, but increased in France, Ireland and Spain.

Asian wage growth far outstrips Western countries – Nikkei Asian Review

JAKARTA — Wages in Asia grew by an average of 3.5% last year, nearly ten times faster than the 0.4% increase seen among the wealthiest members of the Group of 20 countries, whose leaders will meet in Argentina later this week. Driven largely by Asian economies and China in particular, wages in the G-20’s emerging or developing economies — including Indonesia and India — have tripled overall in the two decades since the Asian financial crisis, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization. The disparity between developed countries such as Japan — where wages declined by 0.4% last year — and less-developed countries in Asia, is partly due to emerging economies growing much faster and enjoying lower inflation than other emerging or developing regions such as Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe or the Middle East.

Despite growing economies, nearly one billion Asians in vulnerable jobs – Nikkei Asian Review

JAKARTA — Despite decades of world-beating economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into middle class life, around 900 million more Asian workers remain in what the International Labour Organization deems “vulnerable” employment. Vulnerable employment refers to people who lack formal work arrangements or contracts, are often nonsalaried and working part-time in sectors such as agriculture or retail, and are sometimes self-employed. Such workers often can be fired without much notice and subsequently have no access to unemployment benefit.