The finance ministers of the Group of Twenty (G20) concluded upon meeting in London on the 4th and the 5th of September that “rising unemployment rates will spur a difficult crisis”. The ministers also announced that the crisis's curve is now going downwards, and agree that recovery is still fragile, while showing concern about the rising number of the jobless worldwide. A week ago, the 2001 Nobel Prize-Winner in Economics Joseph Stiglitz affirmed that the recession is not over yet, and described the current global situation (Challenges.fr periodical) by saying: “The worst is behind us but the crisis is still there and the economy remains fundamentally weak. Economists define recession as being two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Technically, this means that when growth becomes positive, the recession is over for them. This is wrong.” He adds that recession for many others begins when unemployment rates increase and jobs become more difficult to find. In institutions, this translates into untapped surpluses in their production capacities. Stiglitz thus concludes that “we have now returned to the normal form of recession”. Converging with Stiglitz's analysis are the U.S President and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the latter's administration, who both recently reckoned that the crisis is nearly over, but expressed their concern about the sheer magnitude of unemployment having risen to about ten percent, a rate from which the French President is seeking to spare his country. It should be noted here that the number of people with no jobs is now estimated to be around 15 million in America. Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn reasserted that unemployment will continue to rise in the years to come, considering that the end of the crisis, which would allow the world's governments to pull out their economic stimulus and financial assistance programs, begins only when the private sector resumes its activities towards economic recovery, while its institutions function in their full strategic capacities – only this would place the workers back in their work posts. In the same vein, Stiglitz mentioned that: “Those who have lost their entire life savings will not return to their normal lives until at least two years from now, while in four years, everything will have returned to normal. Nonetheless, global growth will remain below the level at which it could have been, had we pursued a more stable approach than engaging in speculation.” As such, it is quite likely that a return to growth in the global GDP to the levels seen in the years preceding the crisis will not be easy. For several years, growth stabilized at 5.2 percent annually (OECD-2007). This is a favourable rate when compared to the then global unemployment rate stabilized at 6 percent, or 189 million unemployed individuals. In 2007 in particular, 65.5 percent of those over 15 years were employed. However, the workers' conditions were not sound, and the majority were therefore damaged by the crisis. In fact, analysts in the International Labour Organization estimated two years ago that more than half of the workers worldwide do not have the security and benefits of paid work, while 40 percent of them are poor. Only a few of those workers (relative to the number of workers worldwide) enjoy employment rights, securities, and end of service benefits. Despite the decrease in the number of poor workers (defined as workers earning less than 2 dollars per day), the figure remains high, and had accounted for 43.5 percent in 2007 as opposed to 53.8 percent ten years before that. Also, the hovering of unemployment at the same rates up until 2007 concealed the existence of the problem of creating new jobs that would have otherwise pushed unemployment rates down. That year, no more than 45 million jobs were provided worldwide, half of which were in Asia, where the highest global growth rates are concentrated. Based on the labour market data two years ago, and taking into account the growth of the labour force worldwide, the average global unemployment rate will be about 9 percent this year, while noting that employment among young people has decreased from 57.5 percent in 1997 to 54.6 percent in 2007. This is a positive indication that their schooling years have prolonged and that some burdens on the labour market were thus alleviated. In spite of the various changes at the level of production sectors in the meantime, the number of individuals working in agriculture has declined from 42.4 percent to 34.9 percent in the period in question, fuelling a rise of employment in the services sector from 37.5 percent to 42.7, while employment rates in the manufacturing sector was stable between 21.1 and 22.4 percent. This is while taking into account the closure of many factories in developed countries and the establishment of new industries in emerging market countries. Faced with these facts, it will not be possible for the diverse global economic sectors to reinstate all the unemployed who lost their jobs, in parallel with the signs of economic recovery seen so far. This is because the services sector is the most scalable sector that can assimilate new jobs as it grows in sync with the productive sectors. In this regard, European reports estimate that two new jobs are created in the services sector for every new job in manufacturing. However, this last sector will face tremendous difficulties in regaining its vigour even in emerging market countries such as China, India, Latin America and Russia, owing to the close interdependence between industrial robustness and global demand. Also, the growth of trade does not occur exclusively because of price increases due to speculation, but also because of volumes and quantities, which are indicative of the extent of the exploitation of capacities. It is for the reasons mentioned above that the modest growth rates resulting from the governmental stimulus packages (estimated at five trillion dollars), will not be able to absorb the labour abandoned by the major institutions in both their headquarters, branches and sister companies across the world. This is a particularly valid conclusion when spending on infrastructure will only create jobs for unskilled labour. What this means is that the recession will continue in its most basic definition, caused by the global economy's inability to provide job opportunities.
