information for practice

Despite robust GDP growth in 2005, labour market performance worldwide was mixed, with more people in work than in 2004 but at the same time more unemployed people than the year before. Overall the global unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.3 per cent after 2 successive years of decline. At the end of 2005, 2.85 billion people aged 15 and older were in work, up 1.5 per cent over the previous year, and up 16.5 per cent since 1995. Given that unemployment is just the tip of the iceberg, the focus in developing economies should not be solely based on unemployment alone, but also on the conditions of work of those who are employed. In 2005, of the over 2.8 billion workers in the world, nearly 1.4 billion still did not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the US$2 a day poverty line – just as many as ten years ago.