While global economic recovery remains anaemic, most industrialised countries continue to face growing unemployment and public debt. Average unemployment in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries rose from around 5% in 2007 to over 8% in 2012. The Eurozone is faring worse, with unemployment over 11%, and still rising in some countries. The unemployment rate in Spain rose to 26% in 2012, with youth unemployment surging to 55%. In Greece, it stood at 26.8%, the highest in the European Union (EU) with youth unemployment edging towards 60%.

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Written by Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Rome.

And Anis Chowdhury, Director of the Macroeconomic Policy and Development Division at the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP), Bangkok.

Published by Global Labour Column and edited by CSID at Wits University.