New York, February 11:

Young people are increasingly unable to get a foothold in the global labor market while the rapidly aging workforce is enjoying less and less job security, according to an analysis of employment trends released.

The UN analysis will be debated at a meeting of the Commission for Social Development which starts today and is focusing on ‘promoting decent work and employment for all.’ The commission was established to implement the action plan to combat poverty adopted at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in 1995.

According to the analysis, unemployment has increased significantly since 1995 — despite robust economic growth averaging 3.8 per cent annually in the last decade and a 16.5 per cent increase in the number of people with jobs to 2.9 billion. The number of unemployed reached a historic high of 195.2 million in 2006 and the global unemployment rate rose to 6.3 per cent from about six per cent in 1995.

“The most sobering fact is that employment is becoming less and less secure,” said Iran’s deputy UN envoy Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, who chairs the commission. According to the UN analysis, stiff competition under increased globalisation has led to reduced job security, a reduction in job-related benefits, and a diminished role for organised labour. “Precarious working conditions are now the rule rather than the exception in many contexts,” Danesh-Yazdi said.

According to the analysis, almost half of the world’s unemployed are young people aged 15 to 24 although they make up only 25 per cent of the working-age population.

Between 1995 and 2005, youth unemployment rates increased from 12.1 per cent to 13.7 per cent — about three times that of the general population in many areas. “At the same time, unemployment rates are dangerously high for persons with disabilities, who along with migrants and indigenous peoples face discriminatory treatment in the workforce that continues unabated,” Danesh-Yazdi said.

As many as 80 per cent of the disabled in some nations don’t have jobs. In addition to more informal employment, there is more self-employment and short-term contractual employment, he said.

“There is mounting evidence that economic growth is less effective in reducing po-verty in the face of rising tren-ds in inequalities,” Danesh-Yazdi said. “These forces combined have created a world where young people without privilege and wealth are unable to get a foothold in the labour market, and older ones whose proportion throughout the world is increasing rapidly enjoy less and less security.”