The ILO report on trends for this year (2023) in global employment and social prospects highlights that “the aging of the workforce reduces productivity growth.”
This year’s report identifies Portugal as one of the countries where the negative effect on growth of the so-called Total Productivity Factor is most felt. In other words, in Portugal age weighs more than the lack of investment in capital on the lack of capacity to expand the productivity of companies.
The ILO explains that “the greatest negative impact for this to happen” should be in countries such as Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Ireland, countries “where a rapid aging of the labor force is expected and are states that also face high burdens of debt”. “.
Even according to this new report, at a global level, the current global economic slowdown, as a result of the war in Ukraine, “may force more workers to accept lower-quality, poorly paid, precarious jobs and without social protection, thus accentuating inequalities discovered by the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
On the other hand, “taking into account that prices rise at a faster rate than labor income, the crisis associated with the cost of living could push more people into poverty.” The ILO, therefore, sets as a trend for 2023 the existence of people with work and salary, but who continue to be poor.
The “World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2023” report also predicts that global employment growth will be just 1% in 2023, less than half last year’s 2.3% growth.
Unemployment worldwide is expected to rise slightly in 2023, by around three million people, to 208 million, corresponding to a global unemployment rate of 5.8%, the organization estimates. In addition to unemployment, “the quality of employment remains a fundamental concern,” the report reads.
Progress in the poverty reduction process faltered for a decade during the covid-19 pandemic crisis and, despite a recovery during 2021, “the continued dearth of better job opportunities is likely to worsen,” it says the ILO. The deterioration of the labor market is due to the emerging geopolitical tensions and the conflict in Ukraine, the uneven recovery from the crisis caused by the pandemic and the failures in the supply chains, which created conditions for stagflation (high inflation and low growth simultaneously ), for the first time since the 1970s, says the ILO.
According to the report, women and youth are “significantly worse off in labor markets.”
The participation rate of women in the labor market stood at 47.4% in 2022, compared to 72.3% for men, which means that “for every economically inactive man, there are two women in this situation,” the document reads.
Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 “face serious difficulties in finding and keeping a decent job,” warns the ILO, adding that the global youth unemployment rate is three times higher than that of adults and that it is 23.5%. of young people are unemployed, do not study or follow any type of training.
Source: TSF
