Global jobless totals on rise, especially for young people

Global unemployment jumped to nearly 202 million in 2013 as jobs failed to keep up with the world’s growing labor force, according to a United Nations agency.

That represents an almost 5 million increase from 2012, with almost half of the new jobless coming from East Asia and South Asia, the International Labor Organization said Monday.

A big chunk of the freshly unemployed are also located in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.

The labor agency said the huge pool of workers who lost their jobs since the 2008 financial crisis has only widened in recent years.

“If current trends continue, global unemployment is set to worsen further,” the report said, estimating that global unemployment will climb to more than 215 million job seekers by 2018.

That’s especially troublesome for young people around the world; among those aged 15 to 24, the global jobless rate has hit 13.1 percent, almost three times as high as the adult unemployment rate.

Many in their teens or 20s are looking at years of either no work or low-wage jobs with little prospect for advancement.

In 2013, an estimated 74.5 million were without work.

The problem “is particularly high in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in parts of Latin America and the Caribbean and Southern Europe,” the report said.

The labor group predicted that the number of unemployed will increase by another 4.2 million in 2014.