Like every year, the International Labor Organization publishes its report on employment. For the first time since the pandemic, unemployment has returned to pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels: the ILO estimates the number of unemployed at 191 million in 2023, one million less than last year. But this figure hides very different realities depending on the region and country.
” In 2023, global unemployment is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels. The number of unemployed people should thus increase from 192 million in 2022 to 191 million in 2023, while the ILO was still counting in mid-January on three million more unemployed. That’s the headline.
But if we stop there, it’s because we haven’t understood anything. Admittedly, the post-Covid recovery has been particularly rapid in rich countries, in Western Europe for example, but elsewhere, in Africa and in the Arab countries in particular, unemployment – as calculated by theILO – is still much higher in 2023 than it was in 2019.
Many developing countries lagging far behind
North Africa remains the hardest hit region: more than 11% unemployment again this year. Firstly because the consequences of Covid-19 are still being felt, in particular on tourism, and then in the meantime, the war in Ukraine, the tensions on the energy and food markets have led to global inflation. . And inflation is not good for the labor market. Especially since it limits the resources and the room for maneuver of the States, in particular of the most indebted.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the unemployment rate is 6.3% against 5.7% in 2022 and in the Arab States, 9.3% in 2023 against 8.7% in 2022. These developing countries “qwhich already host the most vulnerable people on the planet, face a particularly brutal combination of challenges: high inflation, rising interest rates and an increased risk of debt difficulties. “, analyzed Mia Seppo, Assistant Director General for Employment and Social Protection at the ILO.
Inequalities in the world
Conversely, ” other regions of the world such as Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern, Western and Southern Europe as well as Central and Western Asia have managed to bring their (unemployment) rates down significantly below pre-crisis levels observes the ILO. But in Latin America, employment recovery has often been fueled by the growth of the informal economy and thus the creation of lower quality jobs, warns Sangheon Lee, Director of the ILO’s Employment Policy Department.
Countries whose unemployment rate has not fallen to 2019 levels, and in particular the most indebted, ” urgently need international (…) support and multilateral coordination to tackle persistent jobs deficits and growing inequalities “, pleads the ILO. In an economy in crisis, public action, the establishment of a social safety net: all this contributes to development and therefore to reducing unemployment, she insists.