Financial Tornado May Leave 20 million jobless: ILO

Author: Anurag Bhullar

The International Labour Organization (ILO) in an alarming statement, earlier this week, announced that somewhere around 20 million jobs may be lost due to the financial turmoil worldwide. As per the current calculations of ILO, the worldwide employment level could take a sharp jump from 190 million last year level to 210 million by the end of next year.

Juan Somavia, the Director-General of ILO, said in a statement in Geneva that the governments worldwide need to take some prompt and coordinated measures in order to ward off the severe and long lasting social crisis.

The number of people who are bound to live on less than $1 per day could significantly rise by 40 million and similarly those at $2 per day may rise by more than 100 million by the end of 2009. The sectors that are considered to bear the maximum toll of the financial crisis include construction, tourism, finance, real estate and services.

Somavia also stated that projections of ILO might be underestimated by some people unless the real effects of the recession are actually confronted by them. “We urgently require a sound economic plan for working out families and the real economy, with those rules and regulations that can deliver decent jobs. The need is to link better productivity to salaries and similarly growth to employment,” he added.