Unemployment triggers political and social unrest

A common agenda of political leaders, politicians, economists, entrepreneurs and professionals all over the world is how to control and truncate the unemployment rate, and how to generate new jobs.  
Writing for the World Socialist web site, Kate Randall observes:
"Many regions of the world that have not seen a sizeable spike in unemployment have experienced a worsening in the quality of the jobs available, pushing more workers into vulnerable employment and the informal job sector.
There are often what the report (Global Employment Trends report of the International Labour Organisation - 2013) describes as 'mismatches' between the jobs available and the skills required to attain them. In particular, occupations concentrated in exporting industries have been hard hit, and new jobs that become available often require skills that unemployed workers do not possess…The ruling classes all over the world are seizing on the economic crisis to carry out massive attacks on the living standards of the working class.
The ILO report notes that with the drying up of the limited stimulus funds injected into the economy in the immediate aftermath of the financial crash, the austerity measures being imposed by governments-particularly in the US and the euro zone-are deepening the slump. This has 'reinforced corporate tendencies to increase cash holdings or pay dividends rather than expand capacity and hire new workers'."
UNEMPLOYMENT IN EU COUNTRIES: Unemployment in Spain and France has jumped to new highs. The jobless rate in Spain rose sharply to 27.2 per cent of the workforce in the first quarter, the highest level since records began in the 1970s. In France, the number of registered job seekers who are fully unemployed rose to more than 3.2 million, topping a previous record set in 1997. There was  sharp rise in unemployment in March in the Netherlands and Sweden-an indication that the European Union's northern members are also suffering from the bloc's economic weakness. [Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2013]
One of the consequences of austerity is recession. The economies of many European countries, especially those in the euro zone, are now contracting. If the primary goal is to stabilise the financial system, it makes sense. But whether financial stability can remain the primary goal depends on a consensus involving broad sectors of society.
When unemployment becomes pungent, then the entire political system can reshape. The Italian election was the first, but expected, tremor. In a recent speech, International Monetary Fund Deputy Managing Director David Lipton pointed to the risk that constant social cuts will draw all of Europe into an economic downward spiral, like what happened in Greece. He said, "The euro area could find itself facing the spectre of policy quicksand - in which relentless balance sheet deterioration drags the economy in deeper and blunts the impact of even bold policy adjustment. We saw that scenario play out in Japan over the last 20 years."
UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE USA: According to US Bureau of Labour Statistics, US jobless rate climbed to 7.6 per cent in May 2013 as more Americans entered the labour force.
Demos, a New York-based public policy and advocacy group, dug deep into U.S. Labour Department statistics for 2012 to draw a picture of how young unemployed workers are affected down the road. "We found that last year passed with no significant gains for young people, who continue to endure a jobs crisis even as the economy recovers. The latest numbers from 2013 reveal no significant change in the trend.
Without policy targeted to the needs of young adults, we risk a generation marked by the insecurities of the Great Recession for the rest of their working lives," Demos researchers wrote in their report. America has a youth unemployment problem, and it's not just the kids who are suffering. The nation is poised to lose $18 billion in wages over the next decade due to high youth unemployment, according to a Bloomberg Brief from Bloomberg Senior Economist Joseph Brusuelas.  
Brusuelas told The Huffington Post. "It's a conservative estimate," he said. "That really underestimates the true nature of the problem. My gut tells me that it's much larger."  Indeed, Brusuelas wrote in the note that if all of America's 3.2 million unemployed youth stay jobless for an extended period, the U.S. will lose $44 billion over the next decade.
UNEMPLOYMENT IN ASIA, AFRICA AND MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES: North African countries such as Morocco and Egypt, as well as emerging countries across the Middle East, also suffer from soaring youth unemployment rates caused by stagnant economies, uncertain political landscapes, vast economic imbalances between the rich and the poor, and fallacious educational systems, especially at the secondary and college levels. Unemployment in Saudi Arabia, according to the latest official figures, was 5.5 per cent of the total Saudi labor force (15 years and older) in 2012. This means there are at least 300,000 unemployed people in the Kingdom.
The crisis in the developed world has had major repercussions in other regions, including Asia where economic growth rates dropped. Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa have suffered disproportionately from the crisis in Europe. Advanced economies represent a quarter of lost jobs. The other three quarters are in the rest of the world, especially in the Far East, South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Economic growth in East Asia is down by 1.4 per cent over 2011, mostly due to the Chinese economy whose rate stood at 7.8 per cent, the lowest since 1999. In South Asia, India's growth rate also dropped to 4.9 per cent, the lowest in a decade. Regional GDP (gross domestic product) growth also dropped by 1.6 per cent.
Economic growth has slowed down in many Asia-Pacific countries, affecting labour markets both in terms of the quantity and the quality of jobs available, according to an ILO report. The October 2012 Asia-Pacific Labour Market Update, says jobs growth in the region has slowed down compared to 2011, although the situation varies greatly among countries. For example, while Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan (China) experienced a significant slowdown in employment growth, the Republic of Korea and, to a lesser extent, Singapore and Thailand, saw a rise in job
creation.
Poor quality of employment - which often means low wages and limited access to rights and benefits - is another huge challenge for the region, especially in developing countries.
UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM OF BANGLADESH: Unemployment is an astronomic problem in Bangladesh like other countries and it needs to be on the topmost agenda of the policy makers, public and private entrepreneurs. Thousands of students come out from the colleges and universities after obtaining under graduation and graduation degrees but fail to secure jobs. As a result, a huge number of qualified young students remain unemployed or under employed in the society without contribution to national GDP. Due to poor infrastructure, political instability and conflicting politics, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow has not taken place in Bangladesh in large amounts. FDI is the best chosen way of creating new jobs in every country. According to an ILO study, the rate of growth of unemployment in Bangladesh was 1.9 per cent in the decade of the nineties. But the growth in unemployment currently is 3.7 per cent. The ILO figures also show Bangladesh in the twelfth position among the top 20 countries in the world where unemployment is rising. The number of the unemployed in Bangladesh now is estimated at 30 million. The way the rate of unemployment is increasing, it is feared that at this rate unemployment would soar to some 60 million by 2015.
According to another estimate, every year some 2.7 million young persons are becoming eligible for jobs whereas only about 0.7 million of them are getting employment. The number of the 'disguised unemployed' (an economic term meaning underemployed people or employed to a degree less than their potential), is some 32 per cent. The present social unrest, indiscipline, political conflicts and confrontations are the result of the continuing unemployment problems in the country.
The writer is the Group Financial Controller of a Private Group of Industries.
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