Worldwide Unemployment Crisis: There Are 93 Million Unemployed Workers In G20 Nations

Michael Snyder

Did you know that the total number of unemployed workers in G20 counties is now up to 93 million and that it is increasing with each passing day? You see, the truth is that the United States is not the only one dealing with a systemic unemployment crisis. This is literally happening all over the planet.  So what is causing this crisis?  Is there any hope that it will be turned around?  Well, unfortunately there are several long-term trends that have been developing for decades that have played a major role in bringing us to this point.

First of all, the giant corporations that now totally dominate the global economy have figured out that they can make a lot more money by replacing expensive workers that live in major industrialized nations with workers that live in nations where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  So it isn't really a huge mystery why there is such a huge problem with unemployment in the Western world.  If you were running a giant corporation, why would you want to hire workers that will cost you 10 to 20 times as much as other workers?  A worker is a worker, and over the past decade we have seen a massive movement of jobs to countries where labor is cheaper.

In addition, large corporations are also trying to completely eliminate as many jobs as they can by using technology.  If a corporation can get a computer or a machine or a robot to do a task more cheaply than a human worker can do it, then why would that corporation want to continue to rely on human labor?  And of course we have seen an overall weakening of the economies of the Western world in recent years as well.  This has been particularly true in the United States.  As these long-term trends intensify, the worldwide unemployment crisis is going to get even worse.

In fact, the director general of the International Labor Organization is fully convinced that unemployment is going to continue to rise in G20 nations.  Just check out what he told CNBC on Friday...

Unemployment will likely soar further in the group of 20 major economic powers without immediate action, Guy Ryder, the director general of the International Labor Organization told CNBC on Friday, comparing the jobs crisis to the 2008-2009 financial crisis and warning it needs to be tackled urgently.

"We have gone backwards. It is quite alarming to see...that unemployment has not gone down, in fact it's gone up," Ryder told CNBC at the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Moscow.

He said 93 million people were currently unemployed in the G20.

And when those living in G20 nations lose their jobs, they tend to stay out of work for a very long time.  In fact, 30 percent of unemployed workers in G20 countries have been out of work for one year or longer.

Major industrialized nations all over the planet are no longer able to produce enough jobs for their people.  In many "wealthy nations" the unemployment rate has already risen well up into double digits.  Just consider the following numbers...

-The unemployment rate is above 25 percent in South Africa.

-The unemployment rate in France recently hit a 15-year high.

-The unemployment rate in Italy is up to 12.2 percent, which is the highest in 35 years.

-The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole is up to an all-time high of 12.2 percent.

-The unemployment rate in Poland is 13.2 percent.

-The unemployment rate in Ireland is now 13.6 percent.

-The unemployment rate in Portugal has rocketed up to 17.7 percent.

-The unemployment rate in Greece is currently sitting at 26.9 percent and it is being projected that it will soon hit 30 percent.

-The unemployment rate in Spain is even worse than in Greece.  The unemployment rate in Spain is a staggering 27.2 percent.

Sadly, it looks like things are not going to be getting better any time soon.  In fact, global business confidence is now the lowest that it has been since the last recession.

So what about the United States?

Well, it is true that our official numbers do not look quite as bad as much of the rest of the world.  But the official unemployment rate in the U.S. has been at 7.5 percent or higher for 54 months in a row. That is the longest stretch in U.S. history.

But at least it is not in double digits yet.

Things could be worse.

However, that does not mean that we are doing well either.

The mainstream media is attempting to convince us that everything is just fine because the unemployment rate has been "going down", but when you take a deeper look at the numbers that is not exactly an accurate assessment of our situation.

As the New York Times recently pointed out, the decline in the unemployment rate can almost entirely be accounted for by a decline in the labor participation rate...

Let’s take a step back. Lots of people lost jobs during the Great Recession. In the aftermath, the great surprise has been how few are looking for new jobs. Labor force participation, the share of adults working or trying to find work, has stagnated at about 63.5 percent, almost three percentage points below the pre-recession level.

The unemployment rate has dropped almost entirely because of this decline in labor force participation. In other words, it has not fallen because people are finding jobs. It has fallen because fewer people are looking for jobs.

To get a more accurate picture of what is really happening with employment in America, you need to look at the employment-population ratio.  It is a measurement of the percentage of the working age population that is actually working.  As you can see, the percentage of working age Americans that actually have a job has been declining since the year 2000...

As you can see, there has been no employment recovery.

When the mainstream media tells you that the employment numbers for June were "great", that is not being honest.  The truth is that the unemployment rate rose in 28 U.S. states and it only declined in 11 states during June, and as I mentioned yesterday, the U.S. economy actually lost 240,000 full-time jobs last month.

So no, things are not getting better, and the unemployment problems in the United States and in Europe are likely going to continue to get worse in the years ahead.

That is very bad news for most of us, because the only thing that most of us have to offer in the marketplace is our labor.  If the value that is placed on our labor is continually declining, then that puts us in a very difficult position.

It is almost as if we have all been drafted to play a very twisted game of musical chairs.  Each time the music stops, more chairs (jobs) are being pulled out of the game.

You might be doing okay for the moment, but what is going to happen when the music suddenly stops one day and your chair gets pulled out of the game?

That is something that you might want to start thinking about.

This article first appeared here at the Economic Collapse Blog.  Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

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