News

UNI Global Union will tell global leaders at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh next week that they must take concrete action to boost employment. While governments spent billion bailing out banks, not enough is being done to save jobs and unemployment is spiraling out of control.



A report out from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warns that unemployment will rise in 2010 and could remain high for even longer. The OECD is calling for concerted government action to adapt social and labour market policies to fight the possibility of long-term unemployment for millions of workers.



“Unemployment is not an acceptable price for the financial abuse we have seen,” said UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings. “The G20 must get aggressive on bonuses and promote the common good. This must be the jobs summit.”



A report in UK newspaper the Guardian today says that the pay gap between company executives and their staff continues to widen as pay for top-level managers is climbing higher and higher even in the midst of the global economic recession. Unemployment meanwhile has skyrocketed and workers are clearly feeling the pain of the financial crisis.



The OECD report says the unemployment rate has already reached a post-war record high at 8.5 percent in the OECD area, which means more than 15 million more people are unemployed that at the end of 2007. The report says that without a recovery in the job market the OECD unemployment rate could hit a new post-war high of 10 percent, or 57 million people out of work.



Among its warnings, the reports says that while most OECD countries have introduced measures to support labour demand that have worked in the short-term they may not be long-term fixes. It says ensuring employment for young people, strengthening social safety nets for the unemployed and job search and training assistance are vital to fight high levels of unemployment in the long term.



“Now is the time for governments to act,” Jennings said. “As bad as unemployment levels are now, lack of decisive action from governments to train people and create jobs could lead to even more devastation for the world’s workers.”