HONG KONG, Dec 23 (AFP): Fears of sweeping job losses caused by the global economic crunch deepened today with more layoffs, as governments took added measures to ease the impact of the crisis.
China's central bank unveiled its fifth interest rate cut since September, but it failed to stimulate investors concerned at the scale of the downturn being felt across the globe.
South Korea announced measures aimed at shoring up its key shipbuilding and construction sectors, creating a task force to assess companies' finances and force the unviable ones to restructure.
"Basically, the government will focus on salvaging firms by injecting fresh funds or putting them under debt rescheduling programmes," Kim Jong-Chang, the head of the Financial Supervisory Service, told reporters.
South Korea, home to seven of the world's top 10 shipyards, has won record orders in recent years but they are now facing a sharp decline in orders.
Meanwhile Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second largest memory chipmaker, won an injection of nearly 600 million dollars from its creditors to help the South Korean group tackle falling demand and lower chip prices.
The jobs fears were crystallised by Angel Gurria, head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, who said the slowdown could put 25 million people out of work between now and 2010.
He told French radio a recession in the OECD's 30 industrialised economies would continue for much of next year, with weak growth the year after.
While huge attention has gone to big names such as troubled US auto giants GM and Chrysler, which have been granted a huge emergency government loan to save them from almost certain bankruptcy, the effect on jobs is worldwide.
Job fears deepen as global economic slowdown intensifies
FE Team | Published: December 24, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
Share if you like