Vulnerable employment cases highest in SAsia: ILO

Updated on: Thursday, January 27, 2011

Incidence of 'vulnerable employment' is highest in South Asia, including India, with 580 million people in the region falling under the category, says the annual Global Employment Trends report of the International Labour Organisation.
People in the vulnerable employment category in the region are saddled with low wages and little social protection, said the report.

In fact, the whole of Asia Pacific region had a comparatively higher level of vulnerable employment cases compared to the rest of the world.

The report released this week, however, said that unemployment rate in India and in South Asia as a whole had "fairly" stabilised.

It said "rapid economic growth has resumed" and the region's unemployment rate has been fairly stable, running between 4.3 and 4.5 percent between 2007 and 2010.

"However, the region has the highest rate of vulnerable employment in the world, at 78.5 per cent of total employment in 2009," it said.

The report also sought to caution that unemployment is not the only main labour market challenge in the region as employment growth also "did not automatically equate to positive labour market trends".

It highlighted the issue of youth unemployment, saying young people are 3.5 times as likely to be unemployed as adults.

There are "gender-based inequalities also, such as the disproportionate number of women in low productivity or vulnerable employment," it said.

It said that globally, the youth unemployment rate was 12.6 per cent in 2010, which was 2.6 times the adult unemployment rate.

In South Asia, it was 9.5 per cent while in South-East Asia and the Pacific it was 1.42 per cent and in East Asia it was 8.3 per cent.

For the Asia and the Pacific region as a whole, it forecast that while rapid economic growth has resumed, regional unemployment is expected to see little change in 2011.

It said youth unemployment, vulnerable employment, poverty and lack of social protection would continue to remain a major cause of concern for policy-makers.

Vulnerable employment cases highest in SAsia: ILO

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