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UNI says ILO right to sound alarm bells over mounting job insecurity in new world of work: trillions wiped off global demand

The International Labour Organisations’s flagship annual report, World Employment and Social Outlook 2015 (WESO 2015) launched today warns of widespread global job insecurity with 75% of workers employed in temporary or short-term contracts in informal labour market or unpaid family jobs.

WESO 2015, entitled “The Changing Nature of Jobs” shows that only a quarter of workers worldwide have stable jobs.

UNI Global Union General Secretary, Philip Jennings said, “This report is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the jobs’ challenge in the new world of work. It’s little wonder we have anaemic global growth. The share of wealth is skewed against working people and the result is that while productivity increases, wages are stagnating creating a growth deficit and massive fall off in global demand. WESO 2015 estimates unemployment, and lagging labour incomes are pushing back global demand by $3.7 trillion. We need quality jobs where workers are able to afford to help grow our economies.”  

ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said, “The shift we're seeing from the traditional employment relationship to more non-standard forms of employment is in many cases associated with the rise in inequality and poverty rates in many countries.”

The report finds that, “There is a growing recognition that labour regulation is necessary to protect workers – especially those in non-standard work – from arbitrary or unfair treatment and to enable effective contracts between employers and workers.”

The report also highlights the increasing importance of global supply chains in today’s labour markets.

“An estimate based on some 40 countries with available data finds that more than one in five jobs worldwide is linked to global supply chains,” the report shows. “That is, jobs that contribute to the production of goods and services that are either consumed or further processed in other countries.”

The ILO estimates that global unemployment figures reached 201 million in 2014, over 30 million higher than before the start of the global crisis in 2008.

Jennings added, “This is a wake-up call for policy makers: the labour market is in deep trouble and can’t kick start growth in this environment. We have to rebuild labour market institutions.” 

Read the full report here