ILO – World Employment & Social Outlook, 2024

The ILO's World Employment & Social Outlook for 2024 highlights a slowdown in economic recovery and a deteriorating macroeconomic environment in 2023. Ongoing geopolitical tensions and persistent inflation led to aggressive moves by central banks, resulting in the fastest increase in interest rates since the 1980s. This had significant global repercussions, with large emerging economies such as China, Türkiye, and Brazil experiencing considerable slowdowns, affecting global industrial activity, investment, and trade. Growth in advanced economies was also halved. Despite the economic slowdown, job growth remained resilient and the unemployment rate continued to fall. Global growth in 2023 exceeded expectations, and labor markets showed surprising resilience. The global unemployment rate was 5.1 percent, slightly lower than the previous year. The global jobs gap also improved but remained elevated at around 435 million. Labor market participation rates had largely recovered from pandemic lows, particularly in lower-middle-income and high-income countries. However, there were significant differences across labor market groups, leading to imbalances, particularly in advanced economies. Real wages declined in most G20 countries as wage increases failed to keep up with inflation, despite lower unemployment and positive employment growth. The number of workers living in extreme poverty increased by about 1 million globally, and moderate working poverty also saw an increase of about 8.4 million. Informality rates returned close to pre-pandemic levels, with approximately 2 billion workers in the informal sector in 2023 due to the growing global labor force.