HIBAPRESS – W.M.A. The Director-General of the International Labour Organization, Gilbert Houngbo, said that there are "hard facts" that still plague the global labor market, foremost among them the expansion of the informal (unstructured) economy, where about 2.1 billion people work in unstructured sectors, making the process of integrating them into the organized economy a very complex challenge.
The director of the organization pointed out, in press statements, that youth unemployment remains one of the most prominent sources of concern, as nearly 20 percent of young people around the world are not working and are not participating in education or training. This gap between the sexes is widening, as the percentage rises to 28 percent among women, compared to 18 percent among men. He added that the International Labor Organization has been relying for years on the "Global Labor Gap" index to measure the reality of the labor market more accurately, explaining that the traditional unemployment rate reflects only the number of job seekers, and does not include those who have lost hope and stopped searching. According to the same source, when calculating this category, it becomes clear that about 400 million people around the world want to work but are unable to find suitable opportunities, and some of them have withdrawn completely from the labor market. He pointed to the phenomenon of "working poor," noting that about 240 million people around the world already have jobs, but the low wages make them unable to meet their basic needs and pay their monthly obligations, which raises fundamental questions about the quality of jobs, not just their number. He affirmed that these indicators, taken together, reflect a relative improvement in the global labor market, but at the same time they shed light on deep structural challenges that require more inclusive and just policies to ensure decent and sustainable work for all. He concluded that the global unemployment rate is still relatively stable at around 4.9 percent, noting that the picture of the labor market at the global level during the past two years seems less bad than expected, and even indicates, in some aspects, a gradual improvement.
