Stability no longer the norm for world job market since recession

World employment has not recovered following the 2008/9 Great Recession. Today, over 200 million are unemployed worldwide, up by 30 million from the 2008 level. That estimate more than doubles when the count includes those who have dropped out of the job market.

According to the main findings of the International Labour Organization’s World Employment and Social Outlook report issued last week, it is against this background that global job markets have undergone a dramatic transformation.

The report’s core theme is “the changing nature of jobs”. Jobs have become less secure, and less permanent, with fewer stable work contracts. These developments, the report says, have crimped demand and fed growing inequality.

The benchmark against which current employment conditions are gauged is the standard employment model, where wage-earning or salaried employees have contracts for stable, full-time jobs. According to the report, in a sample of 180 countries representing 84 per cent of the world workforce, only one in four workers enjoy these conditions of employment.

The other three quarters of the workforce have temporary or short-term contracts, jobs in the informal economy (often without a contract), are self-employed, or work in family enterprises.

Overall, 60 per cent of workers globally do not have employment contracts.