Report: Economic Slowdown May Force Workers into ‘Lower Quality’ Jobs

The UN labor agency (ILO) said that the current global economic slowdown is likely to force more workers into accepting lower quality, poorly paid jobs that lack job security and social protection.

In a report entitled: "ILO’s World Employment and Social Outlook Trends report", financial experts painted a grim picture of labor's future in light of the global economic crisis.

The latest report estimated that global employment is set to grow by just one per cent in 2023, which is less than half last year’s level.

The number of people unemployed around the world is also expected to rise slightly, to 208 million, the ILO’s report noted.

It also showed that this corresponds to a global unemployment rate of 5.8 per cent – or 16 million people.

The UN report warns that today’s economic slowdown “means that many workers will have to accept lower quality jobs, often at very low pay, sometimes with insufficient hours”.

This is likely already the case in Europe and other developed countries, thanks to the Ukraine war and the continued disruption of global supply chains, both of which are counteracting the robust stimulus packages implemented to ride out the COVID-19 crisis.

Richard Samans, Director of ILO’s Research Department, said: “Real wages we project for 2022 to have declined by 2.2 per cent in advanced countries and of course Europe makes up a significant proportion of advanced countries, versus a rise in real wages in developing countries."