CREATE JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOUTH.

Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.

Sustained and inclusive economic growth can drive progress, create decent jobs for all and improve living standards.

COVID-19 has disrupted billions of lives and endangered the global economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects a global recession as bad as or worse than in 2009. As job losses escalate, the International Labor Organization estimates that nearly half of the global workforce is at risk of losing their livelihoods.

Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, one in five countries, home to billions of people living in poverty, were likely to see per capita incomes stagnate or decline in 2020. Now, the economic and financial shocks associated with COVID-19, such as disruptions to industrial production, falling commodity prices, financial market volatility, and rising insecurity, are derailing the already tepid economic growth and compounding heightened risks from other factors. 

Facts and figures

• 5%
  An estimated 172 million people worldwide were without work in 2018 - an unemployment rate of 5 percent.
• 1 million
  As a result of an expanding labour force, the number of unemployed is projected to increase by 1 million every year and reach 174 million by 2020.
• 700 million
  Some 700 million workers lived in extreme or moderate poverty in 2018, with less than US$3.20 per day.
• 48%
  Women’s participation in the labour force stood at 48 per cent in 2018, compared with 75 percent for men. Around 3 in 5 of the 3.5 billion people in the labour force in 2018 were men.
• 2 billion
  Overall, 2 billion workers were in informal employment in 2016, accounting for 61 per cent of the world’s workforce.
• 85 million
  Many more women than men are underutilized in the labour force—85 million compared to 55 million.