Sunday Ojeme 
As the global community battle to curtail growing unemployment, the Director General, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Mr. Gilbert Houngbo, has revealed a three billion increase in the number of people engaged in informal jobs.
He disclosed this in his opening address at the ongoing 112th International Labour Conference taking place in Geneva, Switzerland. According to him, the battle against informal employment appears to be running out of steam.
“Formal employment creation has not kept up with the increase in the working-age population. The number of informal workers has increased from about 1.7 billion in 2005 to 2.0 billion in 2024,” he said. Speaking on challenges faced glob – ally, he said:
“I would like to share with you the ambivalence which is cur – rently occupying my mind. Since our last meeting in June 2023, I have often asked myself the question as to where our world is going: on the one hand, we are making remarkable, positive and encouraging progress, and on the other we are facing a never-ending chain of challenges and crises.
“Global macroeconomic prospects are stable. As you are aware, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting growth in global gross domestic product (GDP) of 3.2 per cent in 2024 and 2025, which is quite stable compared to 2023.
“To varying degrees, all regions have recovered the pre-pandemic level of economic activity. The effective action taken by central banks to bring inflation under control has also made a positive contribution.
In this sense, the surges in inflation should abate, with inflation decreasing from 5.8 per cent in 2024 to 4.4 per cent in 2025. I sincerely hope that this could relieve the purchasing power of workers, which has been badly affected.
“At the same time, there has been no respite in geopolitical tensions. The hotspots have intensified. The appalling situation in the Middle East has been added to the already existing crises.
The absolutely awful conflicts in Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Haiti, Ukraine and the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name but a few, continue to be major problems for humanity and, more especially, for multilateralism.
Is it really necessary to lament the failure to conclude a treaty on pandemics at the World Health Organization (WHO) last week.”
As regards the labour market, he said ILO was forecasting a global unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent in 2024 and 2025, which is a slight fall – but a fall nevertheless – in relation to 2023, when it stood at five per cent.
“It is also a downward revision of the previous forecast of 5.2 per cent, which we made in November 2023. All in all, these encouraging prospects prevent us from ‘seeing the wood for the trees.’
The unemployment rate of 4.9 per cent translates as a total of 183 million unemployed persons throughout the world.
