A decade after the Asian financial crisis, unemployment remains a rising problem in South-east Asia and the Pacific Islands, hitting 6.6 per cent in 2006 compared with 3.7 per cent in 1996, DPA QUOTED the International Labour Office (ILO) as saying Wednesday. "Over the last decade the region has experienced lower GDP growth and higher unemployment than both South Asia and East Asia," said the ILO's annual Global Employment Trends report in its assessment of the labour scene in South-east Asia and the Pacific. According to the ILO data, in 2006, the South-east Asian/Pacific region notched up 6.6 per cent unemployment compared with 3.6 per cent in East Asia and 5.2 per cent in South Asia. South-east Asian economies have never fully recovered from the 1997 Asian financial crisis that tripped up the so-called "Little Tigers" - the emerging economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. Over the past decade, China and India have replaced South-east Asia as the world's fastest growing economies and main magnets for foreign direct investment.
