Dead end jobs flooding market in richest nations

09 September 2014 -

Good jobs are in short supply and wages falling among the world’s richest nations.

The World Bank’s analysis of the current job market shows a significant shortage of quality jobs and sluggish real wage growth among the G20 countries.

The governments of the 20 largest economies in the world have been handed a new jobs report showing a fragile world employment market with a rise in dead-end jobs.

Courtesy of the International Labour Organisation, the World Bank, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the latest labour market report given to leaders today in Melbourne, Australia highlights “large employment gaps remain in most G20 countries” with the quality of jobs on offer remaining a concern.

The research paper added that "the deep global financial and economic crisis and slow recovery in many G20 countries has resulted not only in higher unemployment but also in slow and fragile wage gains for G20 workers”.

Including the UK, US and the European Union, the G20 economies account for around 85% of the gross world product and 80% of world trade. However, the report shows more than 100 million people were unemployed in G20 economies and 447 million were considered "working poor", living on less than US$2 a day.

With slow growth and stagnant wages set to continue for the foreseeable future, the paper concludes: "Seven years after the onset of the global financial and economic crisis, the economic recovery may be strengthening but remains weak and fragile. The employment challenges across most G20 countries are still very sizeable both in terms of a persistently large jobs gap and low quality of many available jobs.

"The current growth trajectory, if unchanged, will not create enough quality jobs – giving rise to the risk that the jobs gap will remain substantial, underemployment and informal employment will rise, and sluggish growth in wages and incomes will continue to place downward pressure on consumption, living standards and global aggregate demand.”

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