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Contributions from
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Monitor
OECD peer review of German development policy
World Bank discontinues support for Chad
UN decides on Peacebuilding Commission
Webpage of German World Bank office
$1,9 billion pledged to fight avian flu
Rise in globalunemployment
Afghanistan’s public finances
No guarantee of ownership
German insurance giant to launch micro-policies in Indonesia
02/2006
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Rise in global unemployment
The total number of jobless persons stood at 192 million at the end of 2005 the world over, according to the International Labour Office’s recently launched annual publication “Global Employment Trends”. While the global unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.3%, the absolute number of people affected went up by 2.2 million. The document stresses that almost half the world’s unemployed are young people aged 15 to 24. Members of this age group are said to be more than three times as likely to be out of work as are adults. The ILO notes that most economies are not good at gaining jobs from growth. Global GDP grew by 4.3% in 2005, according to its statistics.
The ILO also drew attention to the plight of the working poor, stating that 1.4 billion of the world’s workers earn less than two dollars per day – just as many as ten years earlier. Of 500 million extreme working poor, who make less than one dollar per day, only 15 million succeeded in rising above that poverty line last year, the ILO added. “Given these trends, there is a need to reformulate development and growth strategies,” said Juan Somavia, the director-general of the ILO. He spoke of a “global crisis of mammoth proportions” and a “deficit in decent work, that isn’t going to go away by itself”. Therefore, he demanded that policy-makers deal with the issues. (dem)
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