Crisis not over until global job rate increases

The global economic slump isn’t over until job growth returns, the head of the International Monetary Fund warned in Oslo yesterday.

The IMF says the number of unemployed worldwide has increased by more than 30 million during the crisis to about 210 million people.

“There won’t be any end of the crisis before unemployment significantly decreases,” IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said. “So the idea that the crisis is already behind us is certainly wrong.”

He was speaking at a joint conference by the IMF and the UN’s International Labor Organisation on how to tackle the sharp rise in unemployment in the wake of the financial crisis.

Mr Strauss-Kahn said it was important the two organisations worked together “on policies promoting job creation”.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said job creation should be a key objective along with low inflation and budget discipline.

“We need to steer globalisation in the right direction,” Mr Somavia said in a statement issued after the event.

“For that we need coherence and balance across policies, as well as co-ordination and dialogue among institutions and nations.

“This conference has marked an important step in that direction.”

Among the roughly 130 delegates at the conference was Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who urged banks to get over their unwillingness to lend following the crisis.

Article from The Australian, September 15, 2010.