G20 find alternative-structure to boost jobs

PARIS: G20 labour ministers meeting on Monday and Tuesday in Paris face the tricky task of trying to boost job creation in the face of a fast-deteriorating economic outlook without undermining already stressed public finances.

With a new global downturn brewing, the Group of 20 economic powers are still 20 million jobs short of returning to employment levels of before the 2008 financial crisis.

But G20 countries face a worsening in the shortfall to some 40 million jobs from 2012 as governments seem to be failing to maintain a nascent recovery in the job market, the International Labour Organization and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development wrote in a report published on Monday.

The labour ministers were meeting under France's G20 presidency to share notes on fighting unemployment ahead of a summit in early November of the group's heads of state in Cannes.

The employment outlook is darkening across G20 countries with the OECD forecasting earlier this month that annualised growth would average only 0.2 percent in the final quarter of the year across the Group of Seven most advanced economies.

In light of the fragile employment situation, the ILO and OECD urged ministers to put job creation programmes squarely at the top of their agendas, even as governments' finances come under increased scrutiny on financial markets.

Countries with wiggle room in their budgets should not hesitate to step up spending on job-boosting programmes while those with strained finances should focus on the most cost-effective schemes, the OECD's head of employment policy, Stefano Scarpetta, said.

Hiring subsidies for the most vulnerable workers, apprenticeships for young people and shortened work-times could help soften the blow in a new economic downturn, Scarpetta said.

Copyright Reuters, 2011