Unemployment in Asia to jump to almost 100 million
Updated
The number of people out of work this year in Asia is expected to jump by another seven million, taking the total figure to almost 100 million. This latest estimate from the International Labour Organisation is its best case scenario. The reality could be much worse.
Presenter: Karon Snowdon, Finance Correspondent
Speakers: Professor Graeme Hugo, Adelaide University; Peter Caffa, seasonal worker from Tonga
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SNOWDON: The numbers for Asia are bad enough but they can be doubled for the world as a whole.
In its best case scenario, the ILO says global unemployment could increase by 18 million this year to a total of 200 million people.
In its worst case, if there's no sign of economic recovery this year, the jobless numbers could balloon by an extra 50 million globally, almost half of them in Asia.
The report notes a third of Asia's population still lives on little more than one US dollar a day and the cost of living isn't coming down even as recession spreads.
Graeme Hugo, Professor of Geography at Adelaide University, says some of the solutions used during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990's just aren't available now.
HUGO: The money isn't going to be available for investing in new particularly urban based developments, which has really been crucial through the Asian region in places like China, it's been those activities which have absorbed all the people moving out of rural areas, that's not going to be happening. And unlike the 1990s depression, this time it's universal, so the options of migrating as temporary workers to the Middle East or to other countries which haven't been experiencing an economic downturn is going to be much more limited. So I think it's going to be tougher this time round.
SNOWDON: The deep recession in the United States is especially bad news for the region. That's because it supplies so much of the foreign remittances sent back home. The US accounts for 44 per cent of remittances sent by workers to East Asia and the Pacific. The drop in those funds will be hard for places like Tonga where they make up a third of GDP.
All the more important then that Australia's foreign workers scheme for the Pacific kicked off this week. It's tiny, with just 50 Tongans arriving for seasonal fruit picking, but a lifesaver for the likes of Peter Caffa.
CAFFA: When you look at the money, yeah, it's a big help for back home to have that much money during the week because even wages back in Tonga for a teacher wouldn't be like around here.
SNOWDON: The largest number of new jobs is needed in India to absorb new workers. It needs 20 million this year. In China, 10 million new jobs are needed. And in Indonesia, almost four million. Cambodia, Pakistan and the Philippines are high on the list too.
In Asia, the poor face a double crisis: there's no jobs and the cost of basic necessities is still high.
The ILO report notes that the poor cannot survive without work so many will take any job going, swelling the extreme working poverty rate especially in South Asia.
Graeme Hugo again.
HUGO: Where India and China have got comparable size populations but India's fertility rate has remained higher than China's and so accordingly its workforce is actually growing twice as fast as the Chinese workforce. So the issues of new entrance to the workforce are significantly greater in India. The creation of new jobs in India is bound to be influenced in the same way as it is everywhere else by the depression.
SNOWDON: The Indian government has announced two stimulus packages in the past couple of months. But there was nothing similar in its interim budget earlier this week, although defence spending rose by 55 per cent.
US President Barack Obama has finally signed his massive economic stimulus package into law and most of the world will be hoping it has the desired effect.
