JAN 25: One-Third of world's workforce was unemployed or underemployed at the end of 2000, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said in its annual report yesterday."The global employment situation remains deeply flawed, "despite improvements over the past decade, said the World Employment Report 2000, released by the Geneva-based organisation.Nearly one-third of the world's labour force of about three billion people "are either unemployed, underemployed in terms of seeking more work or earn less than is needed to keep their families out of poverty," it said.According to ILO estimates, unemployment at the end of the year 2000 stood at approximately 160 million, 20 million higher than before the peak of the Asian financial crisis in 1998.Many poor people in the developing world were sustained by the meagre earnings of those in jobs in which unsafe and unhealthy working conditions and job and income in security were wide spread.Despite the problems, conditions had improved, it said.In the industrialised world, the ILO report cited the strong rates from 1995 to 2000, more dynamic Europe, and an improving situation in Japan.East Asia, it said, "has surprised the pessimists with its fast recovery from the 1997-98 financial crisis."In the transition economies, output was growing. Russia, thanks partly to booming oil prices in 2000, was "recovering with unexpected speed from its 1998 crisis."
