ILO says 90m new jobs needed by 2010

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GENEVA, Mar 25 (AFP): The ILO yesterday called on authorities to adopt a "jobs-oriented" strategy in the economic crisis, noting that 90 million new jobs must be created by 2010 in order to absorb new entrants to the market.
"We need to implement a coherent and coordinated job- oriented recovery strategy, based on sustainable enterprises, as soon as possible," said the International Labour Organisation's Director-General Juan Somavia.
"If stimulus efforts are delayed, the jobs crisis will be prolonged and severe and employment may only start to recover as from 2011," he added, calling for a "global jobs pact."
Somavia did not, however, specify what such a pact would entail.
Even as jobs continue to be shed as companies downsize or shut due to the economic crisis, the ILO said that the world needs 90 million new jobs between 2009 and 2010 in order to avoid increasing the global proportion of unemployed.
Some 200 million people were jobless in 2008, said the organization, up from 179 million in 2007 recorded in a January ILO report.
The ILO in January also forecast that more than 50 million people could lose their jobs due to the crisis by 2009.
But the ILO said the forecast was based on global economic growth of 0.5 per cent. With the International Monetary Fund cutting the projection to a contraction of 0.5-1 per cent, this projection would have to be revised, the ILO added.
"We think there is a political priority to concentrate on work, on people," Somavia stressed, saying that authorities are not dedicating enough resources to employment.
He noted that measures to stimulate employment make up just 9.2 per cent of stimulus packages that were examined in the ILO's study of policies put in place by 40 member states to deal with the crisis.
"Only half of the countries have announced measures that help employment and among them, the resources that are allocated are relatively limited," said Raymond Torres, who heads the ILO's International Institute for Labour Studies.